Growing Up Harry
by Neale
Summary: Story abandoned due to attacks from anonymous cowards. This is an AU story based in the world of Heritage and Origin to get away from the original story line. AD, MW & RW bashing and some 'bad' characters change sides. Pig In A Poke And Vice Versa
1. Chapter 1

**As I'm getting tired of the crap from some reviewers, I thought I'd kick off the next story in this space as a rather AU one, without following the core events of the original story line as I did with Heritage. The world it's set in will be that of Heritage and Origin rather than Harry Potter per se. I'll be using some of the extra characters I created for Heritage, as well as going with Charlus as Harry's grandfather.**

 **As people seem to need this for some reason, Dumbledore's evil and Molly and Ron Weasley are disgusting in this story, and I expect any story that I'll write in this space.**

 **NB: Yes, I'll be finishing Heritage, just spinning off the next story here because I'm getting tired of some reviewers' comments.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and _this is n_ _ot_ _the real world_ , nor is it a Disney Princess tale.**

James felt something was wrong just before the front door of the cottage blasted in and Voldemort floated into the cottage. He lost his arm to a blasting spell as he was reaching for his wand, and then Voldemort took the time to enjoy killing him painfully before he floated up the stairs to deal with the child.

The woman aggravated him when she refused to stand aside and let him deal with the child. She actually had the gall to fight him, and put up a good fight at that. When she managed to get a curse past his shields and mark him though, Voldemort forgot all about the assurances he had given his best potions master that he would spare her and struck her down with the killing curse.

As she fell, he remembered what he'd promised, but by then it was too late. Severus would understand though, he'd seen the consequences of people defying his master before. With that thought, he moved to the crib and looked down at the infant. It was disturbing to look into eyes that were smaller copies the woman he had just killed's, and the defiance in them was even more so, it was as if the infant knew that his parents had been killed and was challenging him to finish the job.

Voldemort gave a malicious smile as he raised his wand, thinking that if that was what the infant wanted, he would grant him his wish. His death would ensure the immortality of the great Lord Voldemort and _no-one_ defied Lord Voldemort and lived! When he cast the killing curse to destroy the infant though, Voldemort only had a moment to realise that something was wrong as it rebounded on him and then he was screaming in agony, as his very flesh and bones were burning and turning to ash.

A few minutes later, a hesitant voice was heard calling from downstairs. "Master? Master, what has happened?" When there was no response, a pudgy little rat faced man fearfully crept up the stairs a few minutes after that, calling out "Master? Master, where are you?"

The rat faced man peeked into the doorway of the nursery and gasped when he saw the pile of robes and ash with his master's wand on the floor beside the crib. When he saw Lily dead on the floor, he grew bolder and entered the room, because he knew that it had only been James, Lily and the brat in the house. (He smirked to himself as he thought that they couldn't stop him calling him that now!) He raised his wand to finish the brat off but hesitated, his master had come here to kill him and eliminate the threat of the prophecy, but now his master was gone, what if it was trying to curse the child that had done that? That thought made him fearfully lower his wand.

Faced with the proof that his master was dead, he gave up, quickly pocketing his master's wand and whatever he could find in the pockets of his robes. He also went through Lily's robes, more for a chance to grope a woman's body without being struck for it than anything else, and then quickly went through the cottage to grab anything he could find of value. He was still doing this when he heard the loud 'crack' of someone apparating in outside. Without waiting to check who it was, he quickly transformed into his rat animagus form and hid, scampering out the door after Sirius ran in and fell to his knees at the sight of his cousin's dismembered corpse.

* * *

Sirius knelt in front of James' remains in shock for almost a minute before he remembered Lily and Harry and leapt to his feet, racing up the stairs. When he entered the nursery he fell to his knees again, searching in vain for any sign of life in the woman who had been like a sister to him. He gave up after a minute and climbed unsteadily to his feet, hesitantly moving to the crib as he was dreading what he would find there, but as he appeared above the crib, an upset Harry reached out to him fretfully and he swept him up into his arms, thankful and amazed that the protective charms that Lily had crafted and she and James had cast over him had obviously worked. There was no question that Harry had been struck by a nasty curse, as he had a burn mark on his forehead, but he seemed to be fine.

At that moment, Sirius realised that it wasn't safe to stay there, because he didn't know who else might be coming, so he quickly swaddled Harry up in the baby sling that Lily used to carry him around and headed for the door before stopping and going back to quickly grab Lily's notes and journals in an attempt to ensure that no-one could find a way to circumvent the protections that she and James had placed over their son.

He'd only just gotten outside and started the bike when Hagrid came lumbering up. Hagrid was insisting that he had to take the infant because Professor Dumbledore told him that he had to go to his mother's sister. When he came forward to try and take Harry off him though, he suddenly stopped, because Sirius had his wand out and his expression said that he'd kill anyone who tried to take him. Sirius gritted out. "He's my godson and he's my responsibility now! James and Lily made me promise to look after him if anything ever happened to them and I won't let anyone get in the way of that! Get out of my way Hagrid, I don't want to hurt you but I will if you try to interfere with my godson!"

Hagrid put his hands up and stepped back with tears in his eyes. "Wha' can I do?"

Sirius sniffed back tears. "Can you make sure that James and Lily's bodies are safe until someone comes to take them for a proper burial? They're just in there and there's no front door any more."

Hagrid nodded, still crying. "I kin do tha'. You, you take care of the little nipper now!"

Sirius tried to smile through his tears as he nodded. "Oh I'll do that alright! Thanks Hagrid, now I better get going before anyone else turns up." With that he tucked his wand away, checked that Harry was secure and opened up the bike, within a hundred yards it had lifted off the ground and he was flying away south, the disillusion and silencing charms making it disappear as soon as it was in the air.

An hour later he was landing on the drive of a stately manor in southern England and riding up to the front steps. By the time he'd shut down the bike and climbed off, the front doors had been thrown open and two women were hurrying out, Alice and Augusta Longbottom, or the Countess and Dowager Countess Longbottom in society circles.

Sirius was in tears as he tried to tell them that James and Lily were gone. Alice took Harry off of him to check that he was OK, frowning when she saw the burn mark from the curse on his forehead, but not saying anything as they hustled Sirius inside. After a calming draft and a fair bit of firewhiskey, Sirius managed to get the story out, telling them how he'd suddenly had a feeling that something was terribly wrong and what he'd found when he reached the cottage. Eventually, secure in the knowledge that Harry was safe with the Longbottoms, Sirius allowed himself to pass out to escape the anguish of thinking about James and Lily's deaths over and over again.

* * *

By the next morning, they knew that something was seriously amiss, because the front page of the Daily Prophet was proclaiming that Sirius, as the secret keeper for the Potter's cottage, was wanted for betraying the Potters to their deaths at the hands of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and kidnapping Harry Potter (the only one who ever survived being struck with a killing curse, and what's more, who destroyed He-Who-Must Not-Be-Named when he tried to use the killing curse on him). It also said that Sirius was also wanted for the murder of Peter Pettigrew and over a dozen Muggles in a confrontation in a Muggle village, describing how all that had been found of Pettigrew was a finger and his wand.

They couldn't work out how anyone could have gotten these details, because quite aside from the fact that Sirius was innocent of everything he was charged with, to have this much detail someone would have had to be there! Frank Longbottom (Alice's husband and Augusta's son) narrowed his eyes at that. "Or have been monitoring everything that was going on in the cottage!" Frank was an Auror, and a damned good one, and he'd quickly narrowed the possibilities down to the only thing that made any sense. "Who was in charge of the security of the cottage?"

Sirius looked at him, bemused, as he hadn't really gotten over the binge he had the day before as he attempted to drown out the sight of James and Lily's bodies. "Um, Dumbledore I think, he convinced James and Lily that everyone would know to look for them at Potter Manor and sooner or later someone would tell where they were. He talked them into moving into the cottage in Godric's Hollow and he set up the wards and the fidelius charm. His argument to use Peter instead of me for the secret keeper made sense, because I was too obvious, but James and Lily had to fight with him to give me the secret after that."

Frank exchanged looks with Angela Fawley, his regular partner since Alice had gone off duty to have their son Neville. Angela was Harry's Godmother, as well as having been Lily's best friend and being courted by Sirius, so Alice had no problem with her husband spending so much of his time with her, even if she was a beauty. The pair instantly agreed that someone had to check out the cottage as soon as possible, and who better than two respected Aurors who had been given the secret for the cottage? They took some Longbottom elves with them to collect James and Lily's bodies for burial.

As soon as they got there, they went in disillusioned to cast detection spells and reveal what spells were active or had been recently removed, and they found several active spying and listening devices around the house, including in Harry's nursery, so they knew how the details had been obtained for the paper. James and Lily's bodies were gone though, and they had trouble keeping their anger under control until they left and came back, loud and visible so that they could make noise about the fact that their friends' bodies were missing.

Frank and Angela had of course gone to Hogwarts as well, and they loved the gentle giant just as much as Sirius did (and James and Lily had), so they had no doubt that Hagrid would have done as Sirius had asked. This left one person as likely to have removed their bodies to use in some act for his own glory, Albus Bloody Dumbledore! For that matter there was a question as to how Hagrid had gotten the secret in the first place, because that wasn't something that James or Lily had ever approved, who else had Dumbledore shared it with?

Given that Dumbledore obviously had their bodies, the question on everyone's lips was, why hadn't their funeral been announced in accordance with their customs? They got the answer to _that,_ that very night, when the alarms went off to warn that someone was breaching the wards of Longbottom Manor.

* * *

Alice went to the nursery to guard Neville and Harry while Frank, Angela, Augusta and Sirius went to head off and engage whoever was coming for them. Sirius wasn't exactly shocked to see his cousin Bellatrix charging in after the doors were blasted in, and with Bellatrix there, her husband and brother-in-law, Rudolphus and Rabastan Lestrange were no surprise either, but seeing Barty Crouch Junior, the son of the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, _that_ was a surprise!

Sirius engaged Bellatrix as a matter of family honour (even if his family would rather support her following Voldemort over him for trying to follow his own path), and hurried to defeat and kill her so that he could assist the others. Bellatrix had been more powerful than her husband or bother-in-law, but Augusta was not a young woman and she'd never really been trained as a fighter, so she was struggling against Rabastan. A quick look showed that Frank was handling Barty (as the other strong member of their attackers) fine, and Angela was easily a match for Rudolphus, so Sirius engaged Rabastan to get him off of Augusta.

As Augusta stepped back, Sirius caught her eye and nodded for her to go and support Alice with the boys. All of the attackers were dead within fifteen minutes of their blasting in the doors, and they quickly sealed up the hole left by that to prevent any follow-up attacks before they did anything else. Their next move of course was to to run to the nursery to make sure that the boys, Alice and Augusta were OK, then they stopped to take a breath and think about what they were going to do.

One thing that was obvious was that Sirius and Harry couldn't be there when the Aurors officially arrived, and it wasn't safe for Neville to be there either. Augusta had been shocked by the language that Frank suddenly started spouting after he'd had a chance to stop and think about what had happened, but she matched him when he explained. "It was that bastard Dumbledore! He was the one who cast the fidelius for the Manor and he's the only one alive outside this room who has it, so he _must_ have been the one who gave them the secret!"

It took them all a few minutes to get past their need to kill the bastard who had had James and Lily killed (and was obviously trying to have the rest of them killed as well for some plan that he was working to), and start thinking about what they could do to protect the boys.

They were despondent until Sirius suddenly perked up, saying "Home!" with a grin. They looked blankly at him for a moment and then Frank matched his grin. "Yes! Sirius is still living at Potter Manor! Its wards are the strongest in the British Isles, if not all Europe, and us and Remus are the only ones alive who have the secret. Lily was never comfortable with Peter so James never gave him the secret for the Manor, that means that there's no place safer than Potter Manor."

That was enough to make Augusta feel comfortable about the security of Potter Manor being enough to protect her grandson and her best friends' grandson, but it raised another question. "OK, it sounds good, but how in Merlin's name can we get the boys there?"

Angela grinned at that and called out "Tally?" A female elf in a neat uniform popped into the room. "Yes Miss Angela?"

Augusta had a sharp eye and a sharper wit, so she picked up the Potter crest on Tally's uniform and raised an eyebrow at Angela, waiting for an explanation as to why the Potter elves came when she called.

"When Lily was pregnant with Harry, James was always being called away by Dumbledore so they did what was required to make me a family member so that I could command the elves to do whatever Lily needed. That's neither here nor there though, the Potter elves can take the boys to Potter Manor safely, Alice too, and then we can call our bosses in and make this official. We can say that Alice was afraid for Neville and took him away into hiding because no-one was supposed to be able to find this place while it was under the fidelius charm. That will let us raise questions about Dumbledore as well."

They quickly agreed to the plan and Alice packed bags for herself and the boys before she had Tally and Dommy take them off to Potter Manor, while Sirius apparated outside, rode his bike outside of the anti-apparation wards that the Death Eaters had cast and apparated himself and the bike off to Potter Manor.

Frank, Augusta and Angela checked their memories and Frank and Angela made some quick adjustments to remove any images or indications of Sirius's presence before they called their bosses in, specifically asking for Amelia Bones. Someone must have gone running to Crouch though, because he turned up with Amelia, and he was enraged when he saw his son laying dead on the floor. He called them all liars when they told him that Barty Junior had been part of the Death Eater group who came to kill Neville and the rest of them, even when Frank ripped the sleeve off of Barty Junior's robes to show the dark mark, and they cast prior incantum spells over his wand to show that he'd been casting 'crucio' and killing spells at them.

The Aurors eventually managed to convince Barty Senior that he was too close to the case to be involved and made him leave, so that Amelia could take over. The problem with that was that Amelia was probably the sharpest Auror there was, and she'd seen the holes in their stories. She trusted Frank and Angela, Augusta too for that matter, and knew that they'd never purposely draw trouble anywhere near their home or Neville, so she told the other Aurors to take the bodies back to the office while she finished taking the statements.

When the others were gone, she started to ask what really happened but Frank signalled her to be quiet while he and Angela cast detection spells. They found a number of listening devices that had been hastily planted, and took Amelia off to a clean and secure room to talk, Frank could 'discover' the devices in one of the checks he did at least a few times a week and raise a formal complaint about them then.

As soon as the room was secure, Amelia rounded on them, but Angela threw that morning's Daily Prophet at her. "Yes, we know this, Black showed his true colours and betrayed the Potters to his master, then he hunted Pettigrew down and killed him and a street full of Muggles as well, what's that got to do with this?"

Angela furiously got right in her boss's face. " _None_ of what's in that is true!"

Frank pulled her back and took over. "She's right Madam Bones, Sirius wasn't the Potter's secret keeper, Pettigrew was. Sirius and Angela are also Harry's official godparents, so you know as well as I do that he couldn't harm them after he took that oath. For that matter, Sirius also took a magically binding oath of loyalty and protection to James and the Potter family when they took him in when he was sixteen. That would have been what tipped him off that something was wrong and made him rush off to Godric's Hollow straight after James and Lily were killed. As far as killing Pettigrew and those Muggles goes, Sirius arrived here with Harry less than an hour and a half after James and Lily were killed, and he was here from then until just before you arrived, so we know that he had nothing to do with that. Besides which, you've seen people blown apart Madam Bones, there's always a lot more than a finger left! It may be spread around, but most of it's there somewhere. Someone's trying to pin the blame for all of this onto Sirius, and every indication is that that's Albus Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore? What does he have to do with this?"

"He's the only one other than James, Sirius, Angela and myself who had the secret for both the Potter Cottage in Godric's Hollow and here, we never gave Pettigrew the Secret for here, the only one outside of family and close friends who had it was Dumbledore, who cast the fidelius charms for here and the cottage. The reports in the paper of what happened in their cottage were remarkably detailed, as if the one who wrote them was there, and when Angela and I checked the cottage, there were spy and listening devices all over the cottage. Dumbledore was also the one who created the wards for the cottage so he had access to do that. For that matter, _he_ was the one who convinced James and Lily to move out of Potter Manor, which is the most secure place in the British Isles, to the cottage because he said that sooner or later someone would reveal where they were. Thinking back on it, I'd bet that he must have put some sort of compulsion on them to get them to go along with that because Lily especially was too smart to fall for it otherwise."

"Another thing we found was that James and Lily's bodies were gone, Sirius asked Rubeus Hagrid to ensure that the bodies were safe… By the way, that's something else that adds more suspicion to Dumbledore's role in this, I've told you how serious the oath was to bring Sirius to the cottage so quickly, but Hagrid managed to run there from the floo point in the village before Sirius left. Dumbledore had sent him there to get Harry and take him to Lily's Muggle sister in Surrey (who Lily hasn't talked to since before they were married and who hates anything to do with magic), how did Dumbledore know that James and Lily were dead, and how did he know to make plans about where to take Harry to? If that's not suspicious I don't know what is!..."

He suddenly remembered what he'd been saying. "Oh yes, we went to recover James and Lily's bodies for a proper burial but they were gone, Hagrid told Sirius that he'd make sure they were safe and we have no doubt that Hagrid would have done as he said, but they'd been taken before Angela and I could get there. Pettigrew will be on the run and I can't think of any reason for him to take them. We looked in the paper for the funeral notice which is required by our customs, but while there were all those pages and details of what happened in the cottage and all the other crimes that Sirius supposedly committed, there was no funeral notice. Then we were attacked here tonight, I'll bet that if you checked with the Daily Prophet, you'll find that a joint funeral notice for them and us is ready to go out tomorrow morning!"

Madam Bones looked furious. "Do you have a secure room that I can make a floo call from?"

Frank nodded and led her out of the room. Their expressions when they came back in left little doubt as to what she had been told by the Prophet.

Augusta put a tumbler of firewhiskey in her hand, and while she went to reject it at first, she changed her mind and downed it in one gulp. It wasn't every day that you find out that the leader of the light has been setting young families up to be slaughtered by Voldemort and his Death Eaters to progress some sick plan for, what?… It was bad enough when the biggest problem was the fact that the son of the DMLE was a Death Eater who had come here to kill the family of one of their Aurors….

"Shite, with the rest of this I almost forgot, we need to get the details about the attack tonight straight."

Frank took the tumbler of firewhiskey from his mother with a quiet. "Thanks Mum." and sat down, taking a sip before he began to speak. "It wasn't much different from what we told you. The alarms went off to say that someone was attacking our wards, Alice went into the nursery to protect the boys and Mum, Sirius, Angela and I headed for the Foyer. They blew the doors in and came in with curses flying. Sirius took on his cousin Bellatrix and put her down fairly quickly, then took on Rabastan because he was pressing Mum pretty hard. Once Rabastan had engaged with Sirius, Sirius sent Mum to help Alice look after the boys. Barty Junior was giving me a run for my money, but Angela wasn't having too much trouble with Rudolphus. Once we'd put them all down and made sure they were dead, we ran to the nursery to make sure that Mum, Alice and the boys were OK, then we sat down to sort out our stories. After Sirius pointed out that Potter Manor was the safest place there was for the boys, Angela called one of the Potter Elves to take Alice and the boys there and we adjusted our memories to remove any references to Sirius." He looked at her. "So the story we gave you was accurate except for the fact that we removed any references to Sirius."

Madam Bones nodded, then got all of their wands to cast prior incantum spells over them, recording the spells cast. With that and a copy of Frank's memory of Barty Junior's arrival and the fight with him, she deemed that she had enough to wrap up the case. Before she left though, Augusta gave her formal notification that the Noble and Ancient House of Longbottom would be claiming the titles, holdings, seat and fortune of the Noble House of Lestrange by right of conquest, and that they would also be demanding reparations from the Minor House of Crouch for Barty Junior's part in tonight's attempt to wipe out the House of Longbottom.

Madam Bones smiled. "Thank you Augusta, I didn't believe that anything could make me feel better after what I've heard here tonight, but the thought of the reactions when that goes through in the Wizengamot did. As far as this business with Dumbledore and Sirius goes, we'll have to lay low for a while, but I'll want to talk to Sirius about it. If it were possible to do so at Potter Manor so no-one else has any chance of finding out, I believe that would be better…." She gave Frank and Angela a determined look. "I'm not dropping this, I realise that the Potters were family to you and they came after your immediate family as well, but we'll need to be very careful if we want to take on Albus Dumbledore and survive to tell the tale. I _will_ , however, get one of you to take someone to the Potter's cottage in Godric's Hollow tomorrow so it can be carefully examined, and if those spy devices are still there, we'll have a strong case to start a proper investigation."

Frank, Angela and Augusta nodded, looking more satisfied at that.

* * *

After Madam Bones left, Angela called for Tally again and they were taken to Potter Manor by the elves. Frank was relieved to see that Sirius had his wand in his hand when they arrived, even though he was expecting them. There were tearful reunions between Frank and Alice and Sirius and Angela, even though they'd only been apart for less than two hours, because the events of the last day and a half were enough to make them all anxious and emotional.

They stayed at Potter Manor that night, because they had little confidence in integrity of the wards of Longbottom Manor after the Death Eaters got in. Frank, Angela and Augusta went straight to the Ministry of Magic from there in the morning.

It was interesting to see that the funeral notice that was in the Prophet in the morning was for James and Lily, and Peter Pettigrew. The reason that it was so interesting was because it had been for James and Lily Potter, plus Frank, Alice, Augusta and Neville Longbottom the night before. The night editor of the Daily Prophet had been wetting himself as Madam Bones was telling him what would happen to him if one word of anything to do with this was told to anyone but her, or if he failed to tell her every detail about any changes that were made to the notice, so she should have the name of who changed it by now.

The story about the attack on Longbottom Manor was obviously intended to cover up what happened, as it just said that a few people tried to break in, but they had been defeated. Nevertheless, the Prophet always had reporters in the Wizengamot during sessions, and they'd be ensuring that the full Aurors' reports made in regard to the events would be read out as part of their case against the Lestranges and Barty Crouch Junior, Barty Senior wouldn't be covering _this_ up!

When Augusta checked the agenda for the Wizengamot session that day, she was pleased to see that Amelia Bones had already ensured that the items she wanted addressed were on it, but she was less pleased to note that there was a very general item in regard to the Potter estate on the agenda as well, so she floo called Frank and told him to make sure that he and Angela were there, with Angela's official copies of James and Lily's wills.

* * *

When Dumbledore took his seat as the Chief Warlock, he wasn't at all happy to see Augusta and Frank Longbottom and Angela Fawley in attendance, because he had hoped to get the items about the Potters passed quickly and quietly. When he saw the items that Augusta Longbottom had had added, he sent someone to go and get Barty Crouch as quickly as possible, as he tried to work out how he could squash them.

Dumbledore's fears were realised when he tried to slip through the motions to have the Potter's wills sealed and have himself declared Duke Henry James Potter's magical guardian, because Augusta pounced, asking what the grounds were for these motions. He tried to argue that the contents of the wills would be traumatic for the boy as his nominated guardian had been instrumental in the murder of his parents, realising too late that he'd handed her just what she wanted on a silver platter.

"I must ask how the Chief Warlock has any knowledge of the contents of the Potters' wills, as to my knowledge he was not named or involved in the wills at all, and therefore he has no legal right to access those wills!"

He came back with. "James Potter was discussing young Harry's proposed guardian with me, and against my advice he was adamant that Sirius Black was being named as the boy's guardian. As we know Black was their secret keeper and betrayed them to Lord Voldemort, leading to James and Lily's murders."

Augusta fixed him with a stare. "I was not aware that Lord Black had been tried and proven guilty of these alleged crimes Chief Warlock, when did this trial occur?"

Dumbledore was getting aggravated. "Black has not been captured as yet Madam Longbottom, surely you understand that he cannot be tried until he is convinced?"

"And yet it appears from your comments that he has already been convicted Chief Warlock? Anyway, quite aside from that, I am pleased to be able to inform you that your information as to Henry's intended guardians is incorrect. You see the Potters were a very prudent and careful couple, and they included a prioritised list of their choices for guardians for Henry, and it just so happens that their first, second and fourth choices for Henry's guardians are present in this session. Miss Fawley, would you be so good as to read out the Potters' choices for their son's guardians please?"

When Angela came forward to read that section of the wills, Dumbledore tried to stop her. "It is illegal to open the Potters' wills until a formal ruling has been given here!"

Augusta had to hide her smile of triumph. "These are Miss Fawley's own registered copies of James and Lily Potter's wills Chief Warlock. I'm sure that you are aware of the practice of registering a copy of the will to the person who has been entrusted with protecting the most significant items in the will, which in this case is their son, Henry James Potter?"

They could see that Dumbledore wanted to deny that, but too many heads were nodding around the chamber, it wasn't a common practice, but it was known among careful people. Angela allowed the court scribe to sight the proofs that these were her registered copies of the wills, and then read out James and Lily's choices for guardians for Henry.

"First, Angela Susan Fawley, Henry's Godmother. Second, Frank and Alice Longbottom. Third, Sirius Orion Black, Henry's Godfather. Fourth, Augusta Longbottom. Fifth, Edward and Andromeda Tonks. Sixth, Remus John Lupin. Seventh, Minerva McGonagall. Eighth, Poppy Pomfrey. Ninth, Filius Flitwick and Tenth, Pomona Sprout. I must point out that the formal oaths that Mister Black and I gave when we became Henry's Godparents would have prevented him from betraying the Potters in the way that he was accused, and that there is also an addendum to my and the other copies of the will to say that Peter Pettigrew has in fact been the secret keeper for the Potters' cottage in Godric's Hollow…."

Dumbledore tried to cut her off, saying. "Thank you Miss Fawley, that has no relevance to the matter at hand…." But he was himself cut off by members of the Wizengamot demanding to see proof that the Heir to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black was being falsely accused.

Amelia was trying to keep a straight face as she projected the images of both the guardians list, and the note about Pettigrew being the secret keeper for all to see.

By now Dumbledore was wishing that this whole thing would just disappear, but as he'd raised it he had to call for a vote on sealing the wills and him being made Harry's guardian, and the resounding "NO!" was almost unanimous for both.

Before the matter was closed, Augusta asked Angela whether she accepted the responsibility of being Henry's guardian, and when she said "Of course! YES!", Angela got the formal confirmation from the Wizengamot then and there. Augusta was having no better luck at hiding her look of triumph than Dumbledore was at hiding his look of resigned hatred at her when she won that round.

* * *

They went through a few other items, and then Augusta's items came up. Dumbledore and Crouch tried to get them stopped on the basis that the investigation of the matter hadn't been concluded yet, but Dumbledore had already shot himself in the foot, as the Muggles say, by trying to use Sirius's _presumed_ guilt to seal the Potters' wills and get himself proclaimed Harry's guardian.

Augusta and Amelia brought out all of the reports and evidence from the previous night to show that the marked Death Eaters Bellatrix, Rudolphus and Rabastan Lestrange and Bartemius Crouch Junior had somehow obtained the fidelius secret for the location of Longbottom Manor, and breached the wards and building before attacking the occupants of Longbottom Manor with unforgivable curses (the reports of what had been cast from all seven wands that night were shown, proving that all four Death Eaters had been using unforgivables liberally).

Frank and Angela also presented the evidence that Angela had only been there because she had been upset about James and Lily being killed, so it had only been the Longbottoms who were supposed to be there that night and of them only Frank had been an active Auror in the last year and a half. Few missed the point that without the unexpected presence of a second capable and active Auror, it was unlikely that the Noble and Ancient House of Longbottom would have survived against the infamous Lestranges, let alone Barty Crouch, who had quite a reputation for duelling.

When the vote was called for on their claim to the titles, holdings, seat and fortune of the Noble House of Lestrange by right of conquest, they received a clear majority in their favour, and the same again for their call for the dissolution of the House of Lestrange in Magical Britain. Enough Wizengamot members were afraid of Crouch's retribution to seriously reduce their majority on the vote for the Minor House of Crouch to be penalised fifty percent of their holdings and fortune for Barty Junior's part in the attack (as the Heir to the House of Crouch), but it still passed.

Augusta, Frank, Angela or Amelia Bones weren't involved in any way with the call for Crouch to be removed from the position of Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement on the grounds that his own son had been a marked and active Death Eater without him knowing, but the baleful glares he was casting their way made it obvious that he still blamed them for it. His animosity only increased when that motion was passed almost unanimously before Augusta nominated Amelia to replace him and Amelia was voted in unopposed.

It had been a very bad session for Albus Dumbledore and Bartemius Crouch, but it had been a very good session for Angela, Harry, Frank, Augusta and Amelia. Angela had been formally confirmed as Henry's guardian before anyone could come up with a solid basis to contest it. Harry was saved from Dumbledore being granted guardianship of him and doing Merlin knows what to him and his fortune. Frank and the Longbottom family gained the titles, holdings, votes, a considerable fortune and a Wizengamot seat from the Lestrange family, which they then eradicated. They also won half of the holdings and fortune of the Crouch family. The Longbottoms had increased their votes by over fifty percent, giving them considerably more power in the Wizengamot and Augusta gained her own seat, separate from the Longbottom family seat, so that both she and Frank could sit on the Wizengamot at the same time on matters of serious import. And Amelia managed to leapfrog over the wizards who probably would have held her in a more junior role until she retired, thereby gaining control of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement by being in right place at the right time with Augusta's nomination.

* * *

Although they all wanted to head straight to Potter Manor to share the good news when they left the Wizengamot session, they went to Gringotts first, much to Barty Crouch's misfortune. By lodging the papers for the rulings of the Wizengamot as soon as they reached Fangfist, the Longbottom's account manager's office, the Lestrange and Crouch accounts were immediately locked until the requisite reallocations were confirmed and completed, so Crouch was heavily fined for attempting to transfer holdings and funds that he was no longer the owner of when he rushed in just behind them to try and move things out before he lost them.

Crouch was enraged and started taking it out on his house elf, which any wizard _should_ have known was a stupid thing to do inside the goblins' domain. When Fangfist told them what was going on, Augusta immediately asked that they be taken to where Crouch was causing the disturbance. Fangfist knew what the older Countess Longbottom was like from serving her family for decades, so he jumped to comply.

Augusta saw Crouch's hand raised to strike the elf and her voice rang out through the chamber. "Stop! I claim this elf as part of the settlement that the House of Longbottom is due from the House of Crouch. She is now a Longbottom elf Mister Crouch, lay a finger on her at your own risk!" Crouch raised his hand again out of spite or stubbornness, but he was frozen in that position by the goblins, and Fangfist went forward to take the elf by the hand and lead her to her new mistress.

Once Augusta had completed the ritual to bind her to the House of Longbottom, Fangfist bowed to Augusta and then turned to Crouch, saying in a voice that carried across the chamber. "There will be an additional hundred galleons fine for wilfully attempting to damage the property of another house. This is to be added to the fines being levied for attempting to remove holdings and funds that no longer belong to the House of Crouch."

He turned back to Augusta but kept speaking in the same voice. "Madam Longbottom, this elf has obviously been mistreated and will need to be brought back to full health before her worth can be realised. I would recommend that her value be listed as no more than sixty galleons."

Augusta kept a straight face as she bowed her head regally but mirth was dancing in her eyes.

Fangfist waved for the goblins to release Crouch, but while it was obvious that Crouch wanted to go for his wand and curse them all, he wasn't quite so far gone that he didn't realise that if he did he'd most likely be a dead man, so he just whirled about and stormed furiously out of the banking chamber.

Augusta looked at Winky, the elf, a trifle bemused. Her only thought had been to save Winky from more abuse, but now she had a dilemma, as Winky wasn't at all likely to fit into the Longbottom elves. Angela could see the issue that was facing Augusta and asked if she might make a suggestion? That got her a grateful nod from Augusta. "Of course."

"Why don't you send her to Potter Manor as Neville's nanny? As a Longbottom elf serving the Longbottom Heir, she won't have to fit into the expected behaviour, and the Potter elves are less rigid anyway. Then, when she comes back to Longbottom Manor with Neville as his nanny, the Longbottom elves should give her more leeway as both a nanny and coming from a different household."

Augusta hugged her for that, she knew that Frank and Alice always said Angela was brilliant, and she could see why now. She knelt down to get closer to Winky's level. "Winky, would you like to be my grandson's nanny?"

Winky's eyes lit up. "Yes Mistress, Winky loves childrens!"

Augusta smiled. "Well, that's your job then!"

Winky was almost bouncing with eagerness as Frank helped his mother to her feet with a smile.

* * *

They went back to Fangfist's office to finalise the Longbottom dealings, and negotiate their cut of the fines that were being levied against Crouch, then they were escorted to the office of the goblin handling the accounts of the House of Potter so that Angela could find out what was expected of her as Harry's guardian. All three of them froze when they realised that they were standing in the office of Gringott the Eighth, the Head Goblin of Gringotts and the Goblin Nation of Britain.

They were broken out of that state by a chuckle coming from the other side of the polished marble desk, but the being who stood and came around the desk to greet them was nothing like what they had come to believe to be a goblin. For a start, he was much taller, standing over five feet tall and well muscled. He lacked the pronounced nose and ears and long fingers of normal goblins and he had a thick mane of jet black hair drawn back into a soldier's queue. His voice was more like a man's, though he showed the sharp goblin teeth when he spoke. "Yes, that's the reaction that most of the Potters had the first time they come in here and saw me and my office as well. I am, for want of a better term, one of the goblin nobles, we were left here by the high goblins to look after the goblin people."

He kissed Angela and August's hands and shook Frank's when he reached them. "Miss Fawley, it is so nice to meet the one entrusted to look after our young Duke Potter. Now as you, Lord Longbottom, and you, Lady Longbottom, were also listed as possible guardians for Duke Potter, I believe that you deserve to be included in this explanation of why Duke Potter and the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter are so important to the Goblin Nation. However, as Lord Black and the other Lady Longbottom have also been listed among his potential guardians, perhaps it would be better to have this discussion at Potter Manor, so that they may be included?"

Angela, Frank and Augusta looked at each other, wondering how the Head Goblin knew that Sirius and Alice were at Potter Manor, or even had knowledge of the Manor, but they nodded hesitantly. With the Head Goblin's answering nod, they suddenly found themselves standing in a room in what Augusta realised was in Potter Manor when she saw the magical portrait of Charlus and Dorea, Harry's grandparents.

The explanation that the Head Goblin and Charlus gave after Sirius and Alice had joined them took hours, because it included the history of Magical Britain and the role that the House of Potter played in it, and the Houses of Black and to a lesser degree Longbottom as well. By the time the Head Goblin left to return to Gringotts, the living humans in Potter Manor were shaking their heads at the parts the Potters and Blacks had played in shaping Magical Britain, and dealings with the goblins in particular. They had in turn filled him in about what had happened in regard to James and Lily's deaths and the other things that they'd discovered, and he was not at all happy with what they told him.

There was one thing in particular that soured the afternoon though, because the Head Goblin had gone to see Harry before he left, and he was quite concerned about the burn mark from the curse that had struck him. His insistence that a team would be up to examine Harry first thing in the morning raised concerns in all of them, because his behaviour seemed to be saying that that mark was more serious than just a burn.

* * *

True to his word, a team of goblins, witches and wizards arrived early the next morning. The worrying thing was that only some of these were healers. Angela was there to keep Harry settled, and she heard enough to know that the majority of them were curse breakers. When they were marvelling over the protective charm that had been cast over Harry and trying to work out how to get it to release the dark magic (or whatever it was) that was retained around the burn mark, Angela called for Sirius. Their surprised and grateful expressions when he handed over Lily's notes for the charm told Sirius and Angela that they didn't believe that they would be able to work around her charm without the notes.

Even with Lily's notes, it took them nearly a week to devise a way to remove the dark magic that they were confident that would be safe for Harry, and everyone else in Potter Manor. When it was released from the mark, it coalesced in the air above Harry as if looking for a new target, but the goblins jumped to contain it before it could do so.

The thing forming above him had frightened Harry, so it took Angela a while to settle him, but by the time she handed him over to the healers and curse breakers to confirm that he was OK, she'd noted two things. The first was that he had stopped fretting for the first time since the attack on Halloween, and the second was that the burn mark seemed almost healed, even though it had resisted all of their attempts to heal it before this. It didn't take long for the healers and curse breakers to confirm that the dark magic was gone and that Harry was in perfect health, in fact their findings showed that his magic was stronger now that it had been before they removed it, so the curse breakers were of the opinion that his magic had been trying to fight it off.

* * *

James and Lily's funeral came up in that week. Sirius couldn't go, because the graveyard was being filled with Aurors in the hope of capturing Death Eaters taking the opportunity to attack the funeral goers, and as expected, the press were there in force as well. The press did get a front page picture, but not the one they were expecting. When they arrived to find Pettigrew's casket right beside James and Lily's, Angela and Frank were incensed at the disrespect of having anything to do with that creature near James and Lily, so they grabbed their wands to banish it away from their's. They were surprised when the casket was banished right out of the graveyard, but when they turned around they found that they'd had quite a bit of assistance. They weren't that surprised that Alice and Augusta had their wands out, but Madam Bones, Professors McGonagall, Flitwick and Sprout and Madam Pomfrey did as well, and the one who really shocked them was Severus Snape, standing there with tears streaming down his face.

Snape broke down, saying that he'd tried to do deals with both the Dark Lord and Dumbledore to save Lily but she'd still been killed. Amelia cast a silencing spell on him as soon as he started speaking and had Moody take him back to the Aurors' Office by Portkey, because she didn't want Dumbledore and others to hear anything until she got the whole story out of him. She looked at Angela, and when she nodded to say that she understood, Amelia portkeyed back to the office to start interrogating Snape.

Dumbledore had to stay for James and Lily's funeral to save face, and then got involved in an argument with Lily, Frank and Augusta when they told the undertaker that if Pettigrew was put anywhere near James and Lily, they'd rip it all up and send it through his bedroom window at speed. Dumbledore somehow believed that they'd swallow his benevolent grandfather act and tried to tell them that this was just their grief talking, and that they would be wracked with remorse when they later realised that they'd denied Peter his rightful place beside his friends.

That was definitely the wrong thing to say! Even those who knew Angela the best had never heard her go into full-on harpy mode before, but she did now. **"Friends? That little bastard betrayed my best friend, my sister, and her husband to be _murdered_ by Voldemort! You know as well as I do that that maggot is still out there somewhere, and when I catch him, first he's going to confess to everything that he did, and then I'm going to make sure that he dies in even more pain than Lily and James did. And when I can prove _your_ part in this, I'll be coming after you as well old man!"**

Dumbledore was speechless at that, and when he suddenly realised that the press had caught every word, he apparated away in a panic. He dithered about for half an hour, wondering how he could turn this around to make himself look better, before he remembered about Snape and rushed off to the DMLE. He barged into Madam Bones' office and demanded that Severus Snape be released to him. She didn't bother covering her anger as she told him that Mister Snape was not being held, he'd come in to assist them in their enquiries and then left. The look she gave him when he demanded to know what enquiries he was assisting with almost made him wet himself. "The investigations of the DMLE are confidential and _no_ business of your's Mister Dumbledore, leave, now!"

He couldn't find Snape anywhere, and Dumbledore would have been shocked to know where he was, because he was at Potter Manor with Sirius, Remus and the boys. Amelia had called Angela in as soon as she and Moody finished their interrogation and showed her the transcripts, telling her that she believed that he was truly remorseful.

The story that came out was that Severus had joined the Death Eaters as an angry and spiteful young man while he was still at Hogwarts. He'd realised what a mistake he'd made soon after that and went to Dumbledore for help to get out, but Dumbledore had blackmailed him into staying with Voldemort and acting as a spy. He'd overheard the first part of a prophecy that was being given to Dumbledore in seventy nine, but when he'd told Dumbledore about it and what he'd heard, Dumbledore had ordered him to tell Voldemort what he'd heard.

It was only after Neville and Harry were born that Severus realised how the prophecy could be interpreted, and as he still cared a great deal about Lily even though their friendship was over, he'd begged both Voldemort and Dumbledore to have her spared. Neither of them did so and now she was gone, he couldn't honestly say that he felt remorse about James Potter after everything he'd done to him, but he certainly did about Lily. When Amelia told him how Dumbledore had set it up so that Pettigrew could betray James and Lily to Voldemort, Snape told her everything he knew about Dumbledore and his actions.

When Amelia told Angela all of that and asked if they could hide him at Potter Manor where it was safe, Angela talked it over with the others and shared the transcripts that showed that he'd tried to get out just after Hogwarts, but Dumbledore had trapped him into staying, and that he hadn't done anything terrible since then. It was a tough decision, but they eventually agreed to give him sanctuary.

Over the next couple of years, the curse breakers worked on Severus's dark mark until they managed to remove it. Severus, Sirius and Remus had resolved their issues by then, as one thing that Sirius and Remus had to concede was that Severus was a brilliant, knowledgeable and extremely powerful wizard who had considerable insights into the twisted minds of both Dumbledore and Voldemort, so he was a good man to have on their side, even if he was still a moody git a lot of the time.

* * *

Once the dark magic was out of Harry's head, they settled down to life at Potter Manor. The Longbottoms stayed at Potter Manor until the goblins had finished repairing and strengthening the wards and removing and replacing the fidelius charm at Longbottom Manor. Once Longbottom Manor was deemed safe to move back into, the Longbottoms did so, but Augusta, Alice and Neville still spent most days at Potter Manor. There were a number of reasons for this, the first being that after the attacks, none of them felt truly safe unless surrounded by people that they could trust. While James and Lily's wills had provided proof that the majority of the charges that Dumbledore had drummed up against Sirius were false, the new Minister for Magic had allowed herself to be pressured by Dumbledore (as the Chief Warlock) so Sirius was still wanted on those made-up charges and therefore it wasn't safe for him to leave the grounds of Potter Manor.

The other primary reason was that being at Potter Manor gave Neville the opportunity to be immersed in all manners of magic with Harry, they were growing up being able to interact and speak to elves, goblins, centaurs, merpeople, all manners of magical beings, and they were being introduced to the different types of magic from an early age as well. Amelia Bones' ward, her niece Susan, also spent most of her time at Potter Manor from when she was a toddler. Like Frank and Alice, Amelia was much happier knowing that Susan was safe, had companionship and was learning so much about their world that she couldn't elsewhere. The three children were being trained in the lore and practices of all the magical beings, and this enabled them to control their magic to the point where they started their formal magical and non-magical training at five.

Alice had gone back to work as an Auror by then, as Sirius, Remus Lupin, Severus and the elves, goblins and all the rest were there to look after the kids. The Head Goblin had initiated a search for Remus as soon as Angela was officially made Harry's guardian, because Remus was another one of Harry's nominated guardians and they wanted him back with the family where he belonged. After they located him and brought him back, it was safer and more sensible for the three men to stay at Potter Manor with the kids while the others dealt with the world outside because Remus's status as a werewolf was little better than Sirius's as a fugitive, or Severus's as a known Death Eater. Harry's other nominated guardians were also made a part of his life, being brought in to interact with him, Neville and Susan regularly.

When Alice went back to work, after a period of being teamed up with the legendary Auror Alistor Moody to get back up to speed, she was teamed up with Frank again while Angela was teamed up with the up and coming Kingsley Shacklebolt, who was the only one up to her standard who didn't keep making advances at her. Along with Alistor, these four were acknowledged as the best Aurors that Amelia had, something which created considerable resentment in other Aurors who didn't believe that they were getting the recognition that they deserved, no matter how little basis there was to this belief.

* * *

Soon after the kids started school, Sirius's great uncle died, so he inherited and was accepted to the titles of Duke Black and Head of the House of Black. This was something that shocked and angered many in the Black family, because they had believed that as a fugitive, he would not be able to claim his inheritance and therefore someone else in the family would have been able to claim it. Sirius was sorely tempted to banish his mother from the Black family, and Black House (the Black Family's London Townhouse) as well, but he decided to let her be and go out as a Black as she was on her last legs.

There _were_ two members of the Black family who were glad that Sirius had become the Head of the House of Black, Bellatrix's sisters. Andromeda had been banished from the family after she refused to accept the marriage that had been arranged for her and ran off to marry a Muggleborn, Ted Tonks. Sirius had always loved his cousin Andi, and she was the only one who had rivalled him as the family outcast, so his first act as the Head of the House of Black was to formally accept her, and her daughter Nymphadora, back into the family.

Her sister Narcissa, who was married to Lucius Malfoy, heard of the family outrage over Andromeda and her half-blood daughter being accepted back into the family and drew hope from that. She immediately contacted her sister and asked her if she could put her in contact with Sirius, and when she managed to talk to Sirius she begged him to cancel her marriage to Lucius so that she and her son could get away from him.

At that, Sirius banished Narcissa from the Black family for bringing the family name into disrepute by dealing with Death Eaters, then ordered the dissolution of her marriage to Lucius Malfoy and the return of her dowry. As Malfoy had mainly married her in hope of getting access to the Black family's titles and fortune, he started preparing to cast her out at that, but she disappeared with their son Draco and the house elf Dobby who she'd brought with her before he could do anything. They reappeared in the Black family records as Narcissa and Draco Black the next day, and they moved into Potter Manor.

When Draco joined the other kids in their lessons, he was behind at first, but he worked hard to catch up and he did so with their help. Unfortunately, it took him a little longer longer to lose the attitudes that he'd acquired from his father.

Narcissa soon got bored sitting around the Manor, so she made a proposal to Sirius, this being that if he named her as the Steward of the House of Black, she could represent his interests in the Wizengamot and other dealings with the outside world. That made sense, so she was formally accepted as the Black Steward, and she joined Angela, as the Potter Regent, Augusta, as the Longbottom Steward and Amelia, as the Bones Regent in turning the tide in the Wizengamot.

The old wizards who had ruled the Wizengamot for centuries were not at all pleased to have a group of witches with minds of their own and a strong voting block coming into the Wizengamot and going against the way things had always been. The Chief Warlock was one of their strongest opponents, because it had taken him a few years to recover from the damage that Angela did to his reputation after what she said at James and Lily's funeral had been splashed across the front page for days.


	2. Aunts, Uncles and Cousins

**Well people seem to like this one more, so let's play with it shall we? ;^)**

 **I'm part way through the next chapter of Heritage, but this one flowed better and was done first.**

 **I made a few minor amendments in the first chapter, primarily that Harry and Sirius are now Dukes, rather than Lords, because the lines of Potter and Black were the original Magical Noble Families and were instrumental in the formation of Magical Britain. Also, the Head Goblin is of a different race from the common goblins, he is what's being called a goblin noble, a cross between the high goblins and the common goblins.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this is neither the real world nor a Disney princess tale.**

It was very much a family affair at Potter Manor, because with only fifty noble families in Magical Britain, many connections had been made between them over the past eight hundred years. The primary focal point for the familial connections at Potter Manor had been Harry's Grandmother, Dorea Potter (nee Black). Through his mother Dorea, James had been a third cousin of Sirius, Andromeda, Narcissa, and Amelia and her brothers, but he had also been a third cousin of Frank through his father Charlus.

This meant that Harry was a cousin to Nev, Susie, Draco and Dora (Andromeda's daughter Nymphadora who was seven years older than the other four.), and all of the adults were regarded as Aunts or Uncles. So the kids grew up saying Unca Sirrie, Unca Frank, Unca Remmie, Unca Sev, Unca Ted, Unca Fillie and Unca Gringo (The Head Goblin was a regular visitor to Potter Manor as he was heavily involved with the House of Potter. He was in the process of reconnecting with the House of Black through Sirius, the first worthy Head of the House of Black in more than two hundred years and, like many goblins, he loved children.), and Auntie Angie, Auntie Allie, Auntie Amie, Auntie Andie, Auntie Minnie, Auntie Poppy, Auntie Poma and Auntie Cissa. Augusta was just 'Gran' to all of the kids as she was the only grandparent that any of them had left alive.

* * *

It was hardly more than a month after Cissa and Draco joined the family that Sirius's life suddenly took a turn for the better, because Peter Pettigrew had been arrested while trying to rob someone in his human form. Amelia Bones had given her Aurors a standing notice to notify her, and _only_ her, of anything to do with Pettigrew immediately, so he was quickly hidden away in an unmarked holding cell with any record of his arrest scrubbed before anyone really had a chance to notice.

They knew that they'd have to be very careful in how they handled this, because Dumbledore had the power to squash any trial proposed to clear Sirius, so they had to somehow get him out of the way and slip the item into the agenda of a full Wizengamot session that someone else was presiding over.

They'd been wracking their brains over this for more than a week before Andi suddenly saw the answer, the Hogwarts School Board. They indirectly organised a special meeting of the school board to be convened on the same day as the next full session of the Wizengamot to investigate some serious irregularities that had been discovered in the Hogwarts finances. (Severus had told them about how Dumbledore had been stealing from the school for years, if not decades.)

There was no way that Dumbledore would allow that meeting to proceed without him and his strongest supporters there to cover things up and get the matter squashed quickly. Meanwhile, Amelia would have a trial for a wanted fugitive added into the agenda for the Wizengamot session at the last minute, because once the session had started with the acting Chief Warlock presiding, Dumbledore couldn't take it over.

Dumbledore fell for it hook, line and sinker, and as per usual, the acting Chief Warlock was Tiberius Haverstock, who was a stickler for the proper processes. With him in the chair, once Pettigrew had been brought in for questioning under Veritaserum, there was no way the case would be released without a resolution. A planted question from a lesser known supporter gave Amelia the opening needed to advise the Wizengamot that Sirius Black had somehow heard of Pettigrew's capture and surrendered himself for trial, given that Pettigrew had committed the crimes he was accused of, so he was brought in as soon as Pettigrew's guilt had been determined.

There was nothing that Dumbledore, Minister Bagnold or their supporters could do except watch and raise questions, and those questions were limited to matters which directly pertained to the trial at hand. Dumbledore and Bagnold were dragged into answering questions themselves about why Ministry resources had been wasted on the hunt for Sirius Black for over four years when the evidence of James and Lily Potter's wills had proven that he was innocent of at least half of the charges, which had obviously brought the rest of the charges into question.

The result of the trials was that Pettigrew was sentenced to be put through the Veil of Death for his crimes and Sirius was cleared of all charges, receiving a formal apology and reparations from Dumbledore, Bagnold and the Pettigrew family, as well as being officially confirmed as Duke Black and Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. He took that opportunity to officially bestow Baronies on both Narcissa and Andromeda and reaffirm Cissa as Steward of the House of Black. Dumbledore and the Ministry had come out of it very badly, but the family had come out quite well, just like in the session where Angela had been confirmed as Harry's official guardian.

Dumbledore was on rather shaky ground after that, given that he'd now gone after both of the oldest and most powerful houses in Magical Britain in the past four years, for no good reason in either case. The fact that the two Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Magical Britain were obviously closely aligned again for the first time in hundreds of years made many in the Wizengamot nervous, especially as two of the more powerful and respected Noble and Ancient Houses were also formally aligned to them now. The fact that Sirius married Angela as soon as he was officially cleared, so it was Duchess Black who was Duke Potter's guardian and Regent showed just how close the bonds between the two premier houses of Magical Britain were. Such a powerful alliance had not existed in the Wizengamot in living memory.

* * *

The outcome of his trial meant that Sirius was now free to come and go from the Manor at will, but he still stayed there with Remus, Severus and the kids most of the time. With the exception of Dora, who was at Hogwarts and almost a teenager now, the kids didn't understand the import of what had happened, so aside from formally bowing or curtsying to Sirius and addressing him as 'Duke Black' with a giggle (And getting bows and being addressed as 'Duke Potter', 'Heir Longbottom', 'Heiress Bones', 'Heir Black' and 'Heiress Tonks' in return, resulting in more giggles.), their focus was on studying and playing with the elf, goblin, centaur and sometimes merpeople children.

Most in the wizarding world had no idea that it was not Gringotts, but Bran Holm (The island castle inside the wards of Potter Manor which had been the ancestral home of what became the House of Potter before Potter Manor was built.) and Castle Du (The ancestral home of the House of Black that the goblins had claimed and hidden from the wizarding world in the goblin rebellions of the eighteenth century as punishment for the House of Black's betrayal of the goblin people.) that were home to the largest groups of goblins in Britain, including the dozen goblin noble families, so most of the children's training with the goblins was done in Bran Holm.

The children were usually popped back and forth between Potter Manor and Bran Holm using the elf or goblin versions of apparation, but if the weather was good and they'd been behaving themselves, they were allowed to fly, because they did love to get on their brooms and go shooting off all over the estate. Sirius was usually the one who flew with them when they did this, because he loved to fly just as much as they did.

With the innocence of little children, the unicorns accepted the boys as readily as Susie and Dora, and wizarding pictures of them riding unicorns adorned all of their rooms. The adults wept over the fact that Harry could see the thestrals because he'd seen his mother killed by Voldemort, but the thestrals seemed to sense something special in him and took him on rides around the estate.

They had been shocked to discover Harry's ability to talk to snakes, dragons and other reptiles, as being a parselmouth was a talent that hadn't been recorded before in Magical Britain for anyone outside of the line of Slytherin. Gringott and the Goblins of Britain were delighted about though, because they hadn't had anyone able to speak to their dragons for centuries.

Harry was also discovered to have another talent that was possibly more of a shock, because his cousin Dora had been the first metamorphmagus recorded in centuries. It came out when Dora had been changing her appearance to amuse the younger children, and then Harry started copying her. With Dora there to coach him, Harry mastered this talent much more quickly than she had as she'd had to feel her way with no idea of how to do it.

Being a metamorphmagus seemed to help Harry gain control over the talent that they _did_ expect him to have (seeing as his father had been one) far earlier than anyone expected, as he became an animagus at nine. There was no precedent for this, but they believed that being a metamorphmagus was the reason that Harry could transform into different animals, and this prompted Dora to try the animagus transformation as well.

Traditional beliefs had been that a metamorphmagus couldn't be an animagus, but Harry had proven that wrong, and as Sirius had become an animagus at an early age by most standards there was every reason to believe that her branch of the Black family had that talent. Dora was thrilled to find that she was an animagus as well, and that she also shared Harry's ability to take multiple forms.

* * *

While Harry and his cousins were happy, growing up together at Potter Manor, they didn't have a lot of interaction with other children, this was generally restricted to parties through the Longbottoms, Bones or Tonks. They didn't feel that they were missing out by not spending time with other children if this was what they were all like though, because the ones they met generally seemed to be boasting about silly things most of the time.

Given all of the stories and books still being written about Harry, he was always introduced as 'Cousin Henry' or 'Henry James' at these parties. One thing that they had in their favour was that everyone thought that they knew what he looked like from the illustrations on all the boy-who-lived story book covers, but that was nothing but a smaller version of James with green eyes and a lightning bolt scar on his forehead, they even had him wearing the same glasses that James had. Given that Harry took after Lily more than James, had long hair and didn't wear glasses, these pictures were nothing like him, and even before he'd completely mastered his metamorphmagus abilities, it had been a simple thing for him to change his hair and eye colour to throw people off.

The family had been shutting down businesses selling those made up stories about Harry's life since before he was five, but it was like a hydra, no sooner would they shut down one business and take every knut that they'd made off of Harry's name than another five would start up. Taking all of their money made it possible to have teams working full time on chasing them down and stamping them out though, so that job was farmed out to those teams. They were also trying to find the connection back to Dumbledore, because they were certain that he was behind this somehow, trying to sell the people of Magical Britain on the image of Harry that he wanted them to believe.

Harry rarely got through one of those parties without getting upset about how the other children and adults were sprouting off about what they _knew_ about him, purely on the basis of the stupid stories that had been made up using his name. Angela and the others kept an eye on him, and if he got too upset they'd take him home. The others had generally had enough by then too, so most of them would leave at the same time.

* * *

It wasn't until their Hogwarts letters started arriving that they found out that Dumbledore had managed to slip a few things past them in the early days before they ensured that they were present at every Wizengamot session. As soon as they saw the notice that it was legally required for witches and wizards in Magical Britain to attend the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry after their eleventh birthday, they checked all the laws in hope of finding a loophole that they could use, but the laws that had gone through in early nineteen eight two were suspiciously solid and all inclusive,

They noted that the letter that the Tonks had gotten in nineteen eighty four didn't mention the legal requirement, even though it had already been in place, and when Minerva checked the school files, that change had only been made in ninety one, so the intention was obviously just to trap Harry.

As they couldn't get out of it, they looked at the lists of what the kids had to get for first year. None of the four should be going into first year, because they were already proficient at third year level, if not more, but checking with Minerva they were advised that Dumbledore had slipped through another rule around the same time to say that all students had to start in first year. It was Narcissa, with her Black Noble House mindset who found a few loopholes that they could make use of.

The first was that any student had the right to employ separate tutors for any subject where their family did not find the regular teacher or syllabus acceptable, the only criteria was that the tutors had to have at least an 'E' for their NEWT score for the subject, and preferably a mastery in the subject. Suitable facilities had to be provided for the students and their tutors if appropriate time allocations for the normal facilities were not available.

The second rule was that the Heads or Heirs of a Noble and Ancient or higher house had the right to demand separate quarters for themselves and their staff and retinue. Staff included household staff, tutors and guards. Hogwarts staff had no authority to interfere with, bar or expel any members of the Noble House staff.

The third rule was that the Head or Heirs of a Noble and Ancient or higher house also had the right to be accompanied by a champion and guards at all times. As these guards were part of the Noble House staff, Hogwarts staff had no authority to interfere, bar or expel them.

* * *

When Angela and Alice advised Amelia that they were resigning to go to Hogwarts to protect and tutor Harry, Neville and the others, Amelia went off the deep end. When she'd calmed down a little, she presented a counter proposal. She would keep Angela on the books as a Senior Auror who was wasn't officially active and reported only to her, and she'd also make Sirius, Remus and Severus Aurors on the same basis. In return, Alice would stay on in her normal duties with Frank, and Angela would provide half of the training for a Trainee Auror who had just signed up.

Angela smelled a rat. "Who's the Trainee and who is providing the other half of their training?"

Amelia grinned. "Nymphadora Tonks and Alistor Moody."

Angela worked out what she was after straight away and stared at her. "You want me to train my husband's favourite little cousin to be an Auror and keep her from getting into trouble with the older students! While trying and make sure that Alistor doesn't kill her by pushing her too hard….."

Amelia's grin was unrepentant. "Pretty much! Come on Angela! Who else do I have to train a prospect as promising as her? You know as well as I do that no-one can teach her what she needs to stay alive better than Alistor, she'll be more effective in a year with him than she'd be in five learning from anyone else. For the topics that Alistor's not suited to teach, well you're perfect for the job…."

"Come on Amie! You know what Siri's like, he's going to go berserk when he hears that you've talked his adorable little Dora into being an Auror!"

Amelia was getting worked up herself now. " _ **I didn't!**_ ….." She paused to try and get herself under control. "I didn't talk her into anything Angie, she was already in the training program before I found out about it. You know as well as I do that she's just as stubborn as Siri, Andie and Cissa so there's no way she'll agree to pull out unless she's failed, and quite frankly with her scores and metamorphmagus abilities, she's too promising a prospect to justify kicking her out of the program unless she does. The way I see it, the best way to look after her is to give her the best training possible, and that's what I'm trying to do here."

Alice interjected into the awkward silence that followed. "Can I make a suggestion?"

They'd take anything here. "Of course Alice!"

"Why don't you get _Dora_ to do the explaining? Get her and Sirius in here and let her tell him that she's joined the Aurors and why, then we can talk about the training. Frank and I can help train her too… You know, we shouldn't be surprised that she's chosen this path, look at who she has around her. There's us and Frank as Aurors, Harry and maybe Neville with You-Know-Who and Dumbledore after him, and Sirius, Remus and Severus trying to prepare the kids and themselves for what we all believe is an inevitable confrontation. When you think about it, it's only natural that Dora would make this choice."

The other women nodded thoughtfully at that, agreeing that both the suggestion and reasoning made sense. Without further ado, Amelia called Dora and Sirius in for a talk.

The talk went about as well as they expected, Dora and Sirius were screaming at each other until Alice made the same observation she'd made earlier, which stopped them as Dora responded. "Thank you Auntie Alice! I'm glad to see that _someone_ can understand!"

After that, the talk was quieter and less heated, and they came to an agreement on what Amelia proposed, with Alice's amendment that she and Frank would assist in Dora's training as well. The story for Dumbledore and the rest of the school would be that Dora was one of the tutors who came and went, and she'd alter her appearance and go in as an older witch so no-one recognised her.

* * *

With that sorted out, they went through what they needed to get for the four. Most of the necessary supplies were on hand, and the elves would make their robes and other clothes. (Tally would be a right terror if anyone dared suggest that the young master and the others could wear inferior _bought_ clothes.) Their books could be picked up for them, but they would need to get new wands of course, because they couldn't let anyone see them using their goblin wands. The wands were the only things that they would need to attend Diagon Alley for though, because they already had their choice of _pet_ _s_ sorted.

The family had to laugh at the thought of what the reactions to mngwas or devil-birds would be when they transformed into their other forms. Nuni and Indu normally looked like brindled gray kneazle-cats, but they transformed into ferocious, donkey sized, magic resistant brindled panthers when provoked. They had been found as kittens in Africa after their mother was hunted down and killed for wiping out a village. A distant relation had been part of the hunting party and had found the kittens in her den, bringing them home to protect Harry after they'd heard what happened to his parents.

The devil-birds Hedwig and Aristotle normally took the form of extremely intelligent snowy and eagle owls, but they transformed into something like a small veela if provoked. Even without the veela fire they were formidable beasts when transformed. Another relative had brought them back from India as fledglings.

The devil-birds were nowhere near as rare as the mngwas, but getting them at the age where they would bond with humans was quite rare, so most people in the wizarding world just took them to be owls because they normally looked and acted like magical owls. The two cats and two birds were primarily bonded to Harry as familiars, but constant exposure to the other close family members and reading Harry's connection to them meant that they extended some form of bond to the others in the family as well. This was enough for them to protect other family members.

* * *

To keep it low key, the four children were taken in to Ollivander's separately by their mothers. (Well, Amelia took Susie and Angela took Harry.) Harry had changed his appearance before he went in, so he and Angela were shocked that it didn't fool Ollivander for a second, and he was greeted with a delighted. "Ah, Mister Potter, I was wondering when I was going to see you!" the moment he walked in the door.

Harry shared a look with Angela, and she quickly cast privacy, notice-me-not and aversion spells to prevent anyone outside from hearing what was said in the shop, or coming in. Ollivander took this in, and gave the now grim faced witch a frightened look. Harry had to say. "Mister Ollivander?" three times before he could get his attention and remind him that they were there to get him a wand.

Ollivander's nervousness was soon forgotten as he dove into the task of finding the right wand to match Harry to. It was only after nearly an hour and several dozen wands tried that they finally found the wand that Harry fitted with. Ollivander had a troubled expression on his face as he watched Harry's magic flare with the wand, and he muttered. "Curious, most curious!"

Harry was exalting in how the wand felt so right, because the others' experiences hadn't apparently been like this, but he heard the man's comment and reluctantly put the wand down on the counter to ask. "Excuse me Mister Ollivander, but what's curious?"

Ollivander shook himself as he came back to the now. "I'm sorry Mister Potter, I was just musing that it was curious that the phoenix which gave the feather that's in your wand only gave one other, and the wand that holds it was the one that made you famous."

Angela cut in at that. "Do you mean that Voldemort's wand may have some connection to Harry's?"

"Well I don't know that I'd put it like that but…. Yes, they could have a connection of some sort because their cores came from the same bird..."

Angela angrily pushed the wand back across the counter at him. " **NO**! Find him another wand!"

Ollivander stared at her as if she'd lost her mind. "It doesn't work like that Miss Fawley… The wand chooses the wizard and we've seen how well young Harry is matched to this wand..."

She cut him off again. " _ **I don't care!**_ I'm not going to let Harry have any type of connection with that monster!"

Harry was trying to get her attention. "Auntie Ang… Auntie Ang!…. _ **Mum!**_ " That last got through and she wrapped her arms around him, in tears, muttering. "I lost Lily because of that bastard, I can't lose you too!" into his hair.

They stood there holding each other until she'd calmed down, then Harry tried to get her to see reason. "You know he's right, you saw how my magic reacted to the wand, I won't find another one that fits with me like that..."

She held him for a while longer and then she nodded, still crying. "Yes, I know, but I'm afraid, he killed Lily and James and so many other people and I can't stand the idea of him coming after you… We've only managed to find a few of those horcruxes so we know he'll be back someday…."

Harry almost whispered as he responded. "He's coming after me anyway because of that prophecy, maybe this wand will make me more equal to him… Give me a better chance?"

She nodded and kissed him on the head, wiping the tears from her face as she turned to face Ollivander. "I'm sorry Mister Ollivander, how much to we owe you for the wand?"

Ollivander smiled. "Seven galleons of course, like every other wand Miss Fawley."

Angela nodded and was getting the coins out when he said something else that stopped her. "I'll just prepare the wand for young Mister Potter, oh Albus will be so excited to hear that young Harry was chosen by the wand with Fawkes' other tailfeather…."

She cut him off. " **NO!** Dumbledore is not to know anything about Harry's wand!"

Ollivander faltered, but he was adamant. "But the Headmaster must know! It is imperative that he knows!"

Harry shared a look with Angela, the man was suspiciously adamant on this point, and there had been a notable shift in his vocabulary as well. Angela allowed herself a moment to give Harry a proud smile, as he'd made use of the Auror training that she, Frank and Alice had given the kids, and the more specialised training from Severus as well. Then she turned back to Ollivander and reached out to look for compulsion and memory charms.

"Mister Ollivander, why do you think you are _compelled_ to tell Headmaster Dumbledore about Harry's wand?"

He faltered, aware that something was wrong, but not sure what. "What? What do you mean?"

Angela had seen what she was looking for when her prompt triggered the charm. "Did you know that your _good friend_ Headmaster Dumbledore has cast Compulsion charms on you to inform him of what wand Harry was paired up with and memory charms to cover this up Mister Ollivander?"

"What? No! Albus would never do something like that to me! We have been friends for well over half a century!"

"Shall we go to Saint Mungo's and have the healers there tell you what your _friend_ has done to you then?"

Ollivander froze at that. He had sold Miss Fawley her first wand when she was just a girl of ten and, like others who showed great promise, he had followed her illustrious path through Hogwarts and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She was a young lady of considerable intelligence, integrity and skill, and she would not make that suggestion unless she was certain of what the healers at St Mungo's would find.

"No! Albus would do that to me? What would make him do such a thing?"

Angela reached out and drew Harry to her. "I'm afraid, Mister Ollivander, that we have discovered over the past decade that Dumbledore is quite capable of and willing to do _anything_ that he believes would further whatever plans he has for his future, especially when it comes to my little Harry here."

Ollivander was shocked and horrified by her words, but he can sense the truth in them. "Can, can you remove these charms from me? Please?"

Angela nodded sadly, because he was obviously devastated by the betrayal. "If you wish, of course."

He said. "Yes, please." and Angela cast the spells to prevent anyone coming in before she started working on clearing the compulsions and memory blocks from his mind. With his permission, she looked further than the compulsions keyed to Harry and found others that had been keyed to Nev, Susie and Draco, along with a number of other children of people who opposed Dumbledore. Along with telling him about their wands, she discovered other commands to place tracking, blocking and confounding charms on the wands so that Dumbledore could monitor where they were and hinder their performance as well.

Ollivander hadn't done anything to Harry's wand as yet, but the other three had already been tampered with, so Angela used the Marauders' communications mirror to call Sirius and get Tally to bring them to the shop so that Ollivander could remove the charms, and the charms for tracking underage magic that had been made mandatory as of a few years ago as well. It was a rather disillusioned Ollivander who offered to put those tracking charms on the wands of staunch Pureblood's children to throw Dumbledore off track.

Angela thanked him for that, and suggested an minor amendment to the underage magic charms for the ones he'd been compelled to sabotage and the Muggleborn and Half-blood children's wands especially which would turn them into one-shot spells. Like most Aurors, she'd often been sent to arrest children after their second offence of performing underage magic, but she had _never_ been sent to arrest any Pureblood children, so this was obviously a tool of the Pureblood bigots to try and force Muggleborns and Half-bloods out of their world. While they had Ollivander on their side, it was the perfect opportunity to strike back against the practice.

After they'd paid for Harry's wand and thanked Ollivander, they headed back to Potter Manor to discuss the latest offences of Albus Bloody Dumbledore. Harry was so angry that he was almost setting off Nuni's transformation when she curled up in his lap to let him scratch her behind the ear, so Angela had to settle him down, not that she was much better herself. Luckily they'd decided to get everything out of the way early so that they had plenty of time to prepare, which meant that Ollivander would have plenty of opportunities to put those tracking charms onto Pureblood's wands, and hopefully this year's crop of new Muggleborn and Half-blood students would be getting the one-shot modification to the underage magic charm to protect them a little.

* * *

When they were researching the options that they'd be requiring at Hogwarts, they had been fascinated to find that the Noble House quarters and separate classrooms were magically created by Hogwarts as soon as the conditions were met.

Sirius, Remus, Angela and Dora spent August getting their mastery exams out of the way so that Dumbledore and the Ministry couldn't question their qualifications as tutors, because Severus was the only one who already had all of his key masteries. Dora just squeaked through with her Transfiguration and Defence masteries, but she got them, and they had to laugh about the fact that every one of their 'tutors' had a Defence mastery.

As part of the framework that they were laying for this, Angela had officially been named as Champion for the House of Bones, Sirius for the House of Black, Remus for the House of Potter and Severus for the House of Longbottom, as this meant that at least one of them could be with each of the students at all times. Given that Angela would be at Hogwarts most of the time, they named Andie as Steward for the House of Potter so that she could cast the Potter votes in the Wizengamot, laughing about the fact that anyone who thought they'd have an easier time because they didn't have to deal with Angela in the Wizengamot would quickly change their minds when they discovered what a force of nature the Black sisters were when they worked together.

As well as the core group, Gringott had allocated a squad of elite goblin warriors to the goblin guard who would be accompanying them to Hogwarts, and the documentation naming everyone in the party, claiming their right to separate quarters and listing the subjects that they would _initially_ be employing private tutors for had been submitted through the required process. This was another advantage of their close association with the Goblin Nation, because it was a good bet that no human remembered the processes that hadn't been used in over two hundred years, whereas the goblins still had everything in place.

The Hogwarts Charter had been ratified in the Charter for Magical Britain, and again when the Ministry of Magic was created, where it had been officially accepted that the rights conveyed by the Hogwarts Charter were inalienable, and could not be amended. While additional rules and regulations had been written for Hogwarts by the Ministry of Magic, they had had to confirm that the original charter would and did overrule any addendums that were added. The family was using the original charter here, so their rights could not be challenged.

They were quite looking forward to Dumbledore trying to challenge them actually, because the Hogwarts Charter had been written in the days when the original Magical Noble Houses had absolute power, and Hogwarts herself had accepted the charter, so she would not allow anyone to work against it. The fact that the Houses of Potter and Black had been a part of the creation of Hogwarts as a school only added to their influence within her walls, while the current Headmaster had been trying to force her to change things from what she knew to be right from the time that he arrived, so Albus Dumbledore was not viewed favourably by Hogwarts and she gave him no more control than she was forced to as the Headmaster.

They were also interested to see that Hogwarts hadn't notified Dumbledore that the ancient rights from the Hogwarts Charter had been enacted. Minerva had received the official notification as part of the paperwork she handled as the Deputy Headmistress, but the courtesy notification to the Headmaster hadn't occured.

* * *

When the day finally arrived for them to go to Hogwarts, they met up with two other first years at Kings Cross Station. The first was Hermione Granger, a Muggleborn girl who had quite impressed Minerva when she went to her home to do the meet and greet for her. All of the adults were wide eyed when Minerva told them that this girl would surpass Lily. While Harry had heard stories about his Mum he hadn't experienced the brilliance that was Lily Evans, but those who had knew what a high mark Minerva had set for this girl.

The other girl was Luna Lovegood. Her mother Pandora, who had died a year before when an experiment she was working on went wrong, had been a friend of Angela, Alice and the others at Hogwarts, so they had taken Luna under their wing when her father Xeno fell apart after Pandora's death. Luna was a very bright girl, and she took to their lessons quite well, so they'd worked with Minerva to use a little known loophole in the blanket rule that said that students had to have turned eleven _before_ the start of the school year to get Luna admitted, even though she wouldn't turn eleven for another two and a half months.

Angela and Sirius met the Grangers on the Muggle side of the barrier and escorted Hermione through to the platform, while Frank and Alice collected Luna from her house, because Xeno couldn't be trusted to remember what day she had to be there. None of them were happy with crowds, so the six of them settled into the compartment that they'd claimed when they arrived and talked.

Watching the two girls with Nuni and Indu, Harry suddenly made a decision and looking into her eyes, he commanded Nuni to stay with Hermione and protect her, giving Indu the same order for Luna. While delighted by the idea of Nuni staying with her, Hermione laughed at the idea that these adorable cats could protect them. Luna's sight was telling her that the cats were more than they seemed though, so she asked. "Harry, what _are_ Nuni and Indu?" Harry went to cast privacy wards around the compartment, but Nev was already doing it. When Nev nodded to say that it was done, he answered her. "They're ming-wahs Luna."

Luna's eyes went wide and she asked. "Are they really?" When Harry nodded, she looked delighted and hugged Indu. Hermione was looking from Harry to Luna, knowing that she was missing something here and not liking it one little bit because she thought they were laughing at her. "Well, is someone going to explain what a ming-wah is?"

Harry went to explain but Luna beat him to it. "Hermione, do you know about the classifications for magical creatures?"

Hermione looked confused. "Yes, but…."

"Ming-wahs are rated as four X creatures, some argued that they should be five X creatures but part of the definition for those is that they can't be domesticated which, as you can see, doesn't apply to these guys."

Hermione couldn't see how these cats could rated as that dangerous and started to say something, but Harry sighed and reached over to gently take Nuni from her, looking into her eyes and asking her to change for them, when he had Nuni's agreement he said. "OK, we'll need to get our feet off the floor to give her room to change." They all hastened to do so, with Luna looking eager as she hugged Indu, then Harry kissed Nuni's head and placed her on the floor. Hermione didn't have time to say more than. "What…." before there was a ferocious looking, donkey sized brindled cat with prodigious teeth and claws taking up all of the space between the seats. Nuni turned her head to lick the frozen Hermione's hand as if to say 'See, this is real!', and then she changed back into her normal form.

Harry picked her up again and was stroking her as he asked Hermione. "Now do you understand why they are rated as four X creatures?" She stuttered as she answered. "Y.. Yes, I can…."

Hermione hesitantly reached out for Nuni, and was obviously surprised when she readily came to her. They could see the tears in her eyes as Hermione hugged her and apologised for doubting her, but Nuni had obviously already forgiven her as she was rubbing her head against her face.

After a while, she looked up with a question in her eye. "Harry…..You obviously have Nuni and Indu for protection, why are you leaving them with us?"

Harry smiled at that. "Because for now you will need protection more than we do. We'll be going into our own tower and will have guards with us at all times, but you two will be going into the regular dorms, at first anyway, so I'll be happier knowing that these two will be there to protect you."

That got him a confused look. "How are you going into your own tower?"

Susie snorted at that. "Yeah, Duke Potter, how _are_ we going into our own tower?"

Harry's look said she'd be paying for that later, and Hermione looked almost as shocked as she had been when Nuni transformed, so Susie thought she should straighten this out.

"We're all part of Noble families Hermione. Harry is Duke Potter because his parents were killed ten years ago and he's the last of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter, and the Heir to the titles of Duke Black and Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black as well. Neville is the Heir to the titles of Earl Longbottom and Head of the Noble and Ancient House of Longbottom, I'm the Heiress to the titles of Countess Bones and Head of the Noble and Ancient House of Bones, and Draco is next in line to inherit Duke Black and Head of the House of Black after Harry. We're all Harry's cousins, too."

She glanced at Harry, but he was looking less pissed off, so she continued. "Some people slipped laws through to make sure that we, or more to the point Harry, had to go to Hogwarts when we turned eleven, so the family started looking into ways to make that safer once they'd confirmed that we couldn't get out of it. We found in the original charter for Hogwarts, which pre-dated Magical Britain by three and a half centuries and the Ministry of Magic by seven, that the Heads and Heirs of what are now known as the Noble and Ancient Houses and above have the right to claim separate quarters for themselves, and their retinues and staff, so that's what we've done. They also have the right to be protected at all times, so we have Auntie Angie, Uncle Siri, Uncle Remus and Uncle Sev, who are all Aurors, and a squad of goblin warriors staying here with us, and our cousin Dora will be here half the time as well, so we'll be well protected."

"We also found that students have the right to engage private tutors for subjects where their families don't believe that the regular classes meet their needs, so we're starting with Potions, History of Magic, Astronomy and Defence Against the Dark Arts, but we're expecting to expand that to include the other classes because we've already been studying for years." She stopped and looked at Harry.

"What I believe Harry was getting at before was that he thinks he should be able to get you two moved into our tower and classes with us?….." When Harry nodded she turned back to Hermione.

"So I expect that we'll start working on that once we get there."

Hermione looked a little confused. "But won't we need to get permission to do that?"

"Yes, but my understanding is that Auntie Minnie is the magical guardian for both of you….." Hermione looked even more confused so she said. "Professor McGonagall?"

Both girls nodded so she went on. "So she can sign the forms to let you change over, and then we'll be one big happy family!"

Hermione looked dubious but hopeful at the prospect of that, while Luna just looked serenely happy as she cuddled Indu.

* * *

Nev took the privacy wards down before they drew attention, so after the train left Kings Cross, for a while they were being interrupted quite often by people looking for Harry Potter. Most left quickly when it was obvious that Harry Potter wasn't there (they didn't look twice at the blonde blue eyed boy without glasses or a scar), but some decided that the pretty girls might be fun to play with, and others tried to have fun by ridiculing the ones they recognised so they had to be discouraged.

The worst was a red headed boy, he burst in, interrupting their discussion and pretty much demanded that they tell him where Harry Potter was. When Hermione told him how rude he was being, he spat. "Shut it Mudblood, no-one was talking to you!"

Only then did he notice Luna sitting next to Hermione and proceeded to change feet. "Looney Lovegood? What are you doing here? You've got no right to be here, you're only Ginny's age!" The girls were getting so upset that Nuni and Indu were starting to growl.

Harry went to tell him to piss off, but Draco beat him to it. "Get out of here Weasley! You've got no right to talk to them like that!"

That made him turn on Draco and after a marked delay for the wheels to start turning he spat out. "Malfoy! Don't you dare try and tell me what to do you filthy snake!"

Harry had had enough by then and stood up to throw him out of the compartment. "Seeing as my cousin has been a Black for most of his life, that's a stupid thing to say! Get out!"

The red head went to attack Harry for daring to talk to him like that, but just then he caught sight of Susie's chest over his shoulder (she was much more developed than most girls her age) and just stood there with his mouth open, staring. Susie saw him staring at her chest and hurriedly pulled her jacket closed, but he just kept staring at her.

Harry didn't need to look at Susie to know how uncomfortable this was making her, because he could feel it. So, as the prat wasn't going to stop staring on his own, Harry made him, slapping his face hard enough to make his head spin. When he tried to bring his fists up, Harry grabbed him by the front of his shirt and forcibly pushed him out of the compartment, slamming him into the window frame on the other side of the corridor. "You've already insulted two of my cousins and two of my friends, if you don't get the hell away from here and leave us alone I'll make sure that you regret it!"

The idiot was trying to bluster, probably not realising that the rapidly spreading wet patch on the front of his pants was making it quite obvious that he'd wet himself when another voice piped up. "What's going on here? What are you doing to my brother?"

For all that the older boy with the prefect's badge was a good foot and a half taller than Harry, he stepped back when he saw the look in Harry's eye. Harry was going to ignore him, but then he changed his mind and answered. "I'm stopping him from insulting and bothering my family and friends! My cousin and I both told him to leave after he barged in and started insulting us, but he just stood there, staring at my other cousin's chest, so I pushed him out of the compartment to stop him upsetting her! If he's _your_ family, keep him away from _us_!"

With that, he turned and went back into the compartment, all but slamming the door. Nev was waiting to cast the spells to secure the compartment and privacy wards again, so they could hardly hear the knocking on the door that started just after the windows were blanked. When he sat down, Luna held Indu out to him and he took him with a grateful smile. The cat's purring in his ear as he cuddled him quickly settled him, and Susie leaned into him as he sat back so he put his arm around her.

After a while, Nev lowered the privacy wards and they could see that another prefect, who looked more reasonable than the git's brother, was waiting out in the corridor, so they unsealed the door and asked what he was waiting for. He said that he was wanting to get their side of the story, to see how much of it matched the Weasleys' story, so they invited him in and closed the door. They were small enough that Harry and the three girls fit comfortably on one seat while Draco, Nev and the prefect were on the other.

The prefect took notes as they were talking, frowning when they repeated the 'Mudblood' insult and about calling Luna 'Looney' and telling her that she had no right to be there. He snorted when Harry pointed out how stupid it was to be calling Draco 'Malfoy' when he'd been a Black since he was five, and frowning again at the 'filthy snake' comment. He couldn't resist glancing at Susie when they were telling him about the way the younger Weasley had been staring at her chest, but they could pretty much read the thoughts going through his head. 'Yes, it's impressive but staring at a girl's chest is just plain rude'. He was shaking his head about the difference between what Harry told him was said in the corridor and what the Weasleys claimed had been said.

He also warned them that Percy Weasley was trying to get them charged with underage use of magic because of the privacy wards they they'd put up to keep him out. He was taken aback when Nev piped up and asked him if he could do the prior incantum spell, telling him that his parents were Aurors and offering to show him how to do it when he said 'No'. After Nev showed him how to do it, he tested their wands and got proof that they hadn't been used to cast any wards, so he was prepared to accept Nev's explanation that he'd just wanted the prats to leave them alone and his magic must have locked them out, because he couldn't conceive an eleven year old being able to do something like that wandlessly.

By the time he'd left, the closest thing to a lie they'd told him was that Harry's name was Henry James. They locked the door again after he left, and they weren't too surprised when the door was being rattled and bashed on fifteen minutes later. Peeking behind the blind showed that it was Percy Weasley, so they just ignored him.

Angela, Sirius and Remus were waiting for them when the train reached Hogsmeade and the looks they turned on Percy Weasley when he was strutting towards the kids self importantly was enough to make him do an abrupt about face and scurry away.

* * *

No-one noticed that the blue eyed blond boy had changed into a green eyed boy with long black hair by the time they reached the boats. The girls and Draco went into one boat, so Nev and Harry went into another boat with a couple of other girls.

As they were being led into the Great Hall, Harry smiled fondly back at Hermione when he heard her excitedly talking about the enchanted ceiling of the hall. Neville and Harry shook their heads at each other when the sorting hat was brought out, because Uncle Gringott had loved to tell them the story of the biggest lie in the legends of Hogwarts as they were growing up. After Salazar Slytherin had split with the other Founders and departed, there was a great deal of uncertainty and unease around Hogwarts, as people were doubting the Founders. To bolster people's confidence in the Founders, everyone was told that Godric Gryffindor had performed a great feat of magic and enchanted his hat to make sentient and it took over the task of sorting students into the appropriate houses.

The hat was actually over four centuries older than that, because it had been Merlin's hat and Merlin had enchanted it and imbued it with his spirit, much like the later magical portraits, back in the sixth century to serve as an advisor to those who followed him. Now, over fourteen centuries after it had been created, it was reduced to doing nothing more than picking the new students' houses each year, because the Headmasters of Hogwarts had been refusing to take advice from a _hat_ for over half a millennium.

Draco was the first of them to be sorted, and he was thrilled to go into Slytherin, the same house as his mother. Susie was next and she also followed most of her family into Hufflepuff. It took them a while to get to the end of the 'G's but then it was Hermione's turn, and they weren't surprised when she was sorted into Ravenclaw. A while later Neville was sorted into Gryffindor, like his father, then Luna followed her mother into Ravenclaw.

Harry inclined his head apologetically to the prefect when he was called as 'Duke Henry James Potter', but the prefect nodded his understanding for the necessity of the ruse, and the glamour that had changed his appearance. After that, Harry had an interesting chat in his head with Merlin, and Merlin was quite appreciative of the fact that for the first time in centuries, not one but _four_ students had been polite and respectful to him. He was quite impressed that they actually knew the true story of the hat's origins and commiserated with him that it wasn't being given the role of advisor that it had been created for. Eventually, Merlin reluctantly had to cut their chat short because more and more people were muttering about a hatstall.

Merlin told him that he could fit into any of the houses well, and asked his preference, so Harry requested Ravenclaw, both for their focus on studies, and to spread their core group across all of the houses. Once the hat cried out. " _It must be **Ravenclaw!**_ ", Auntie Minnie took it off his head. Harry looked up and mouthed 'Sorry' to her, but she smiled and squeezed his shoulder to say that she wasn't upset that he wasn't in her house.

* * *

There were a few comments when Hermione and Luna made a space between them for him at the Ravenclaw table and they both hugged him when he sat down. There were even more comments when the Gray Lady, the Ravenclaw House Ghost, went to Harry and had a discussion that only the three of them could hear, because the Gray Lady _never_ spoke to anyone. It wasn't _quite_ as unusual when Sir Nicholas, the Gryffindor House Ghost, went to Professor McGonagall at the High Table and had a discussion with her.

This discussion wasn't as quiet though, because the Headmaster heard what was said and was outraged, shouting. "What do you mean that Hogwarts has created quarters for Duke Potter and the Heirs to the Houses of Longbottom, Bones and Black and their staff? I have not approved this and will not allow it! I will not allow anyone inside of Hogwarts except the students and the Hogwarts staff!"

Professor McGonagall leant in to say something to him quietly, but he started shouting again. "Do not try to tell me what I can and can't do woman, this is _my_ school and my orders will be obeyed! Get those people out of my school, send those students to the house dorms where they belong and then report to my office! You better have a damned good reason for trying to subvert my authority in my school!"

Now he'd raised her ire so she threw a pile of parchments at him and spat back at him in a far thicker brogue than normal. "Well perhaps it ye'd paid attention to ye duties ye'd ken the rules! It's all there in the original charter! Any head or heir of a Noble and Ancient or higher House has the right to demand private quarters for themselves and their people! Ye canna deny any of their people access either because they have the right to be attended by their own people! Hogwarts kens the rules and has created Corvus Tower for the Duke and his people and given his staff access! Why don' ye go out there and try and throw the Duke's goblin guards out? I'd be sore glad ta see ye cut down to size by the little wee men!"

Dumbledore jumped up and stormed out of the Great Hall and Harry, Nev, Susan, Draco and Professors McGonagall and Flitwick were on his heels. They could hear him screeching like a fishwife in the hall. "Get this filthy werewolf, Death Eater and goblins out of my school!" and most of the students were at the door, watching the show.

The others had to cover their laughter when Dumbledore was pulled up short by a surprisingly commanding eleven year old voice. "Headmaster! I would advise you to be _very_ careful about what you say before we are forced to exact punishment on you!"

He turned to the Professor and proceeded in a more polite and respectful tone. "Professor McGonagall. We were under the impression that all the requisite authorities and reference materials had been received and acknowledged by Hogwarts prior to our arrival? The Hogwarts Charter is quite clear on what we may require for our attendance here, why is the Headmaster making these outrageous claims?"

She tried to control herself, but the glint in her eye said that she wanted to do damage to Albus Bloody Dumbledore. "I must apologise Duke Potter, you are quite correct, we have perused all the documentation provided and confirmed that your people have supplied everything required under the Charter. Hogwarts herself has obviously accepted this as well, given that she has created Corvus Tower and given access to your staff. I'm afraid that I was working under the mistaken impression that I was merely doing the administrative portion of this and the Headmaster was performing his duties _as_ the Headmaster, but it appears that I was incorrect in that."

Harry inclined his head to her and then turned to frown at Dumbledore. "Headmaster, you have obviously failed to make yourself aware of the rules that govern Hogwarts, I would suggest that you do so post haste! For now, I will summarise them for you. The original Hogwarts Charter is incontrovertible and overrules any subsequent addendums created. Under this charter, the head or heir of any noble and ancient house or above has the right to require secure, private quarters for themselves, their retinue and staff. They also have the right to maintain suitable security around them at all times and no-one has the authority to question, deny or attempt to expel any member of the retinue or staff of the noble house. Quite aside from the noble house rights, _any_ student may employ private tutors and study separately for any subjects that the student's family believes are not presented in the manner that they require, we are employing this option for four subjects initially and reserve the right to expand this to include other subjects as required. Now I tire of this and wish to retire… Regent, could you lead the way to our tower please?"

Angela smiled and took Harry's arm to lead the group off to their tower. Dumbledore just stood there with his mouth open.


	3. Red Headed Menaces

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.**

Harry calmed down as they headed to the tower, and after quickly looking around to ensure that they were alone, commented. "Obviously Hogwarts hasn't forgotten, but do you think anyone else has worked out the Corvus connection?"

He looked over his shoulder when Sirius snorted, at his look Sirius elaborated. "Minnie and Fili will have, but I seriously doubt anyone else here knows enough about the early history of Magical Britain to pick it up. There's no way that the peacock will get it because it dates back to over a thousand years before the first significant event in the world in his opinion, his own birth."

That made the rest of them chuckle, even the goblins, mostly because they knew how true it was.

When they entered the common room of their tower, Harry snorted again, because pride of place on the wall was given to the original raven standards of the family lines which were to become the Houses of Potter and Black. As he was in fact tired, he said goodnight and went to his chambers to get ready for bed, after properly greeting Hedwig and Aristotle, who's perches were in his bedchamber.

Just before he went off to sleep, Harry pushed out to link with Nuni and Indu, but they were peaceful so he felt comfortable that Hermione and Luna were safe. In the Ravenclaw First Year Girls' Dorm, the two dark grey tabby cats shifted in their sleep before settling back down where they were curled up on Hermione and Luna's beds.

* * *

Dumbledore was furious when Professor McGonagall answered his summons with Professors Flitwick and Sprout in tow and growled at her. "You will be dismissed if you continue to defy me woman! I ordered _you_ to report to my office, no-one else!"

Pomona stepped between Minerva and the Headmaster. "Headmaster! Filius and I were in Minerva's office to learn about the rights that Duke Potter and his party have enacted and how that effects them as members of our houses and students. We insisted on coming along to discuss with you how this will effect things at Hogwarts, and now I am doubly glad that we did! Do not _attack_ Minerva for doing her duty to Hogwarts and her students or we will make you see the error of your ways!"

Dumbledore directed his ire at her then. "Do not presume to speak to me in that manner madam! I am the Headmaster here and I will decide what your duty is, and is not! If you try to push me you will join her in her dismissal!"

It was Filius who pushed to the fore this time, the half-goblin could hardly see over the Headmaster's overly ornate desk, but he was a force to be reckoned with. "You forget yourself Headmaster! The rules of Hogwarts have been determined by better men than you and you are bound by them as are we all! If you attempt to punish Minerva or Pomona for making the effort to comply with the rules that you have not bothered to learn, _you_ are the one who will be dismissed! Our duty to Hogwarts and our students and the rules that we must comply with are set in stone, in the very stone of Hogwarts. You, as the Headmaster, have a greater duty to understand them than we, and I can assure you that if you attempt to fight against her rules, Hogwarts will deal with you herself!"

Dumbledore surged to his feet, hunting for his wand in his robes. "You dare to talk to _me_ like that? When I gave a creature like you your post at my school?..." At that point, he managed to draw his wand and raised it at Filius, but a shield flashed into existence around him and the four House Ghosts, the Gray Lady, Sir Nicholas, the Fat Friar and the Bloody Baron, rose through the floor of the office. Sir Nicholas acted their spokesman.

"Headmaster! Hogwarts is most displeased with you! These professors have come to you in an attempt to make you understand how you have failed Hogwarts and her students, and you not only ignore them, you try to attack them! Hogwarts will pander to your pride no more! You will avail yourself of the rules that govern Hogwarts and abide by them, all of them, or you will be gone! She is also displeased that the head of the School House of Slytherin here at Hogwarts has not moved himself to understand and meet the requirements of the students of his house as the other heads of house have. As he is your man, Hogwarts places the responsibility on you to ensure he meets the requirements, or _you_ will pay the price for his failure. So mote it be!"

There was a flash to indicate that a magical condition had been set, and Dumbledore began to panic. He knew that the castle was sentient and magically maintained everything, but the idea that it could set a magical condition on _him_ boggled the mind! The fact that he couldn't use compulsion or memory charms as he normally did to control something that was all around him was all the more frightening, because he only now realised that he had a powerful, all seeing opponent that he couldn't influence at all.

He did some quick thinking and decided that all he could do was work to his strengths and manage the humans, the professors. "Minerva, Pomona, Filius, I must apologise, I do not know what came over me. Apparently after so long without change, being faced with change has unnerved me. Filius, I wonder if you might ask Duke Potter to come to see me in the morning so that I may have the opportunity to try and start over in a less confrontational manner?"

Filius gave him a suspicious nod, and the suspicion only increased when Dumbledore tried to use his famous benevolent grandfather look on him as if he hadn't just drawn a wand on him and been stopped by Hogwarts herself.

Dumbledore went on. "I do hope that you can all forgive an old man his failings and give him the chance to attempt to make good on them. Now if you could excuse me, it appears that I have a great deal of reading to do to educate myself on my responsibilities to Hogwarts and our students."

When the three professors and the ghosts had left the office, Dumbledore dropped the smile that he'd been using to try and work the professors, and he scowled as he heard what McGonagall had to say as they headed down the stairs.

"That old bastard's still up to something, and I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw Hagrid! Filius, you especially need to be careful around him now that he's shown his true colours towards you. We need to warn the others about this so that they know to protect themselves, I'll take….."

The rest was lost as they went out of range of the listening devices he had hidden in the stairwell.

* * *

At breakfast the next morning, they decided that they had to try and follow tradition, so they each went to their house tables, but they sat at the end of the tables away from the High Table so that they were near their champions and goblin guards. Filius came down to advise Harry of the discussion that they'd had with the Headmaster the night before, and that the Headmaster wanted to see him before class. He requested that he and Minerva be allowed to accompany him to that meeting, which Harry happily agreed to.

Then they had the red headed git's older brother, the red headed prefect, coming over to gloat at Harry about how he and his friends were going to be up on charges for attacking his brother and the illegal use of underage magic on the train. Harry ignored him as he stood and faced the High Table, calling across the hall. "Professor McGonagall?"

She had been watching so she just said. "Yes Duke Potter?"

He asked. "Is this one of your prefects?" as he hooked a thumb at the red head.

"Yes, Mister Weasley is one of my prefects, why do you ask?"

"Because he's trying to threaten me with laying false charges of assault and illegal use of magic against me and my party over the altercation after his brother forced his way into our compartment on the Hogwarts Express and insulted my cousins and my friends."

Even across the hall, the look that she levelled at the prefect made him step back. "Is this true Mister Weasley?"

"No, no Ma'am, well the charges are, but they aren't false charges, they did what they're being charged with!"

The other prefect from the train jumped up then and shouted across the hall. "Stop lying Weasley! You know full well that the Head Boy, Head Girl and every other Prefect accepted the proof that none of what you and your brother were accusing them of was true!"

Professor McGonagall turned to look at the Head Boy. "Is this true Mister Smith?"

"Yes Ma'am."

"And why wasn't this brought to my or the Headmaster's attention before this?"

"Because it was our understanding that the matter had been resolved after Johnson brought the proof that the claims had no validity Ma'am. Weasley _said_ that he accepted it like everyone else."

"I see, thank you Mister Smith. Mister Weasley! Return your prefect's badge at once, you are no longer a prefect at Hogwarts and your parents will be informed of your actions! Have you in fact lodged these charges with Department of Magical Law Enforcement or were you merely attempting to intimidate a younger student?"

Weasley had gone white. "I… um… sent an owl off to the DMLE this morning….. Ma'am."

"I will have to contact the DMLE and inform them that these charges are no more than the spiteful act of a silly boy. Mister Johnson, it would be appreciated if you could provide the proof that you collected…."

When he nodded and said. "Yes Ma'am." she went on. "I hope for your father's sake Mister Weasley that this doesn't cause him serious trouble at the Ministry! Now return your prefect's badge immediately!"

As Weasley shuffled up to the high table to do as he was told, she turned to Harry. "I do apologise Duke Potter, I will ensure that this matter is resolved appropriately, and I do hope that it has not coloured your opinion of Hogwarts too harshly."

Harry bowed to her. "Thank you Professor McGonagall, and no, I recognise that it was merely one boy who was overly puffed up with his own self importance, and not Hogwarts that caused this."

The hall was deathly quiet as he sat down.

* * *

Hermione and Luna looked wide eyed at Harry, asking in a whisper whether every meal was going to be this exciting at Hogwarts? Harry laughed quietly, saying that hopefully the excitement would settle down soon enough. He wondered to himself whether it would though, because Nev, Susie and Draco were all being heckled by their house mates at breakfast. The red headed git from the train was winding his year mates up to taunt Nev at the Gryffindor table, Susie was being asked obviously embarrassing questions at the Hufflepuff table, and Draco had already been approached by an older boy, who they found to be Marcus Flint, and a First year by the name of Theo Nott with two hulking brutes, who were all trying to put him in his place at the Slytherin table. They hadn't escaped attention at the Ravenclaw table either, but it had been generally limited to intrusive questions which were quickly rebuffed there.

Soon after that, there was another altercation between Professors McGonagall and Slughorn at the High Table, which resulted in a hastily scribbled class schedule being summarily dumped in front of Draco by an out of sorts Slughorn. What came out later was that Slughorn had thrown a tantrum in the earlier teachers' meeting to set the First Years' class schedules when he discovered that not only was his most illustrious house member not staying in the Slytherin dormitories, none of the Duke's party would be attending his potions classes, so he wouldn't have any access to them to try and worm his way into their sphere of influence. Because of that, he'd refused to make a class schedule for Draco out of spite until Minerva, as the Deputy Headmaster, had bailed him up at the High Table in the middle of breakfast to force him to make up and give Draco his class schedule then and there.

* * *

When they went to Dumbledore's office, he kept them waiting outside because he was angry that McGonagall, Flitwick, Black and that witch who'd taken the boy's guardianship off of him had accompanied the boy. It was supposed to have been simple, get the boy alone for a few minutes so that he could apply a few compulsions and memory charms to get him under control, the way he was meant to be, but they'd ruined it!

Dumbledore only let them in when McGonagall said. "We don't have time for this, we're all meant to be in class soon!" and they turned to leave. He launched into his act as soon as they entered the office. "So sorry, but I was…. indisposed when you arrived. Thank you for escorting Harry Miverva, Filius, I'll let you go as I know that you have classes to be getting to. Sirius, if you and Miss Fawley could wait outside for a moment, I'd just like a few words in private with young Harry."

They all erupted at that until Harry shouted _**"Stop!"**_ then turned to Minerva in the sudden quiet. "Professor McGonagall?" She inclined her head to him, saying. "Thank you Duke Potter." before she turned on Dumbledore. "Headmaster, after the discussions last night, it was clear to me, and I believed you as well, that it is my duty as the Deputy Headmistress to be present for any discussions with Duke Potter about his and his party's schooling at Hogwarts." When he went to respond, she turned to the diminutive professor and said. "Filius?"

He jumped in before Dumbledore could speak. "Thank you Minerva. Headmaster, as Duke Potter's head of house here at Hogwarts, it is also my duty to be present for any discussions with him in regard to his schooling at Hogwarts." Taking Minerva's cue he immediately went on. "Duke Black?"

Sirius bowed to him. "Thank you Professor Flitwick. Headmaster, in any official discussions you are to address me and my wife as Duke and Duchess Black, and our ward as Duke Potter. Furthermore, myself, Duchess Black, Baron Lupin or Baron Snape are to be present for any and all discussions with my ward or any of our charges. Any attempts to engage any of our charges without at least one of us present will have serious repercussions, do you understand?"

"Sirius, I…."

"You really must get Madame Pomfrey to test your hearing as a matter of priority Headmaster! To repeat, in any official discussions you are to address me and my wife as Duke and Duchess Black, and our ward as Duke Potter. Furthermore, myself, Duchess Black, Baron Lupin or Baron Snape are to be present for any and all discussions with my ward or any of our charges. Any attempts to engage any of our charges without at least one of us present will have serious repercussions. Do. You. Understand?"

Dumbledore spat at him. "Yes, I quite understand _Duke_ Black!"

Sirius nodded. "Very good, now as you have already noted, Professors McGonagall and Flitwick and Duke Potter have classes to get to, so what have you called us here for?"

Dumbledore was raging internally about being talked to this way in his own office, or anywhere for that matter, but he realised that he needed to say something or what he had planned would be exposed. "It is your party and their impact on our regular students. I simply cannot allow a werewolf, a known Death Eater and goblins to remain within the walls of Hogwarts, it places our students at too much risk. This insistence of your's on having armed guards following your party around is also unacceptable as it will frighten the other students and interfere with our classes. Finally, if your party refuses to participate in our approved potions and defence classes, you will have to arrange for your own facilities outside of Hogwarts to conduct your classes in, as we cannot allow the facilities for our regular classes to be claimed by your group because that would adversely effect the rest of our students."

He sat back, smugly satisfied with how he'd come up with something on the fly that would turn them on their heads, so it was a shock when Harry addressed Minerva. "Professor McGonagall?" "Yes Duke Potter?"

"We were led to believe that, after the misunderstanding last night, the Headmaster had been provided with everything necessary for him to come to understand what rights the Houses of Potter, Longbottom, Bones and Black were claiming and how all of this will be managed?" She glanced dismissively at Dumbledore. "Yes Duke Potter, we were led to believe that also."

Harry turned to Dumbledore with a stern expression. "Headmaster, have you read the excerpts of the Hogwarts Charter that apply to the rights that our houses have claimed?" "Yes Harry..."

" _ **Stop!**_ You have just been instructed not once, but twice, by Duke Black that in official discussions you are to address me by my proper title and I insist that you do so! Be that as it may, if you have, as you have claimed, read the Charter, I cannot see how you could have made the statements you just made..."

He held up one finger. "Firstly, it is clearly stated in the Charter that no-one at Hogwarts has any authority to question, impede, deny or attempt to expel _any_ member of the retinue or staff of a party of this nature. Quite aside from that, if you accuse Baron Snape of being a Death Eater again we will officially request that the DMLE deal with the matter. At his invitation, the DMLE questioned Baron Snape on his earlier activities under Veritaserum some years ago and while he had some questionable activities from his youth to answer for, he does not carry the Dark Mark and the DMLE cleared him of any charges of being a Death Eater. We will also raise the fact that you employed him as a teacher here on the understanding that he _was_ a Death Eater at the time. Similarly, Baron Lupin attended Hogwarts for seven years and performed well enough to be a prefect when you were aware that he was suffering from lycanthropy, and his condition is better controlled now than it was when he was here as a student, a fact that the DMLE has accepted enough to employ him for his specialised skillsets. Nor do you have any grounds to object to our goblin guards, if you attempt to do so the House of Potter will contact the other Noble Houses who avail themselves of this service offered by the Goblin Nation and advise them that by extension, you have accused them of questionable and possibly illegal activities."

Holding up a second finger he continued. "Secondly, as per the Hogwarts Charter, all Heads or Heirs of Noble and Ancient or higher houses have the right to be accompanied by their Champions and guards at all times for protection, therefore they _will_ be accompanying us to meals, classes and anywhere else we go. There will be severe consequences for anyone who tries to interfere with this!"

He now held up three fingers. "Thirdly, Hogwarts has already created the necessary facilities for us within Corvus Tower, so we will not require access to the regular Hogwarts facilities for our classes. As we now have little time to get to our first classes, you must excuse us."

With that, they all turned and left the office abruptly, leaving Dumbledore to stew impotently over what a disaster _that_ had been.

Angela and Minerva made sure that they were well away from Dumbledore's office before they hugged Harry for the way he'd shot Dumbledore down. Sirius and Filius obviously wanted to hug him as well, but they restrained themselves to squeezing his shoulder and patting him on the back.

* * *

Harry's first class was Transfiguration with Gryffindor, so Remus and two of the goblin guards escorted Nev (along with Hermione and Luna) to the class while Severus escorted Susie and Draco to their first class with four more goblin guards. Angela met them at the class, as she was the only one who could keep watch over Susie at all times.

Even with Dumbledore holding them up, Harry and the others had made it on time, so Minerva was aggravated when the youngest Weasley boy decided to _sneak_ in with another Gryffindor boy fifteen minutes late, chattering loudly. Minerva had done what she always did and transformed into her animagus form to show the children the sort of thing they could look forward to, what they could reach for by learning magic, and she was sitting on her desk in her tabby cat form.

When she transformed, she'd seen Hermione Granger and Luna Lovegood whispering to each other and she gave a cat smirk as she could guess that they would be whispering about, what the two tabby cats who would be sleeping on their beds as long as they were in the Ravenclaw dormitory turned into when they changed. She gave a little nod when Harry caught her eye, a trifle frustrated that he would be wasting his time in her class, as he'd already mastered the first few years' work for Transfiguration. He'd mastered both metamorphmagus and animagus transformations when he was _nine_ for Merlin's sake, and he wasn't restricted to one animagus form either, he could turn into what he chose. Some of the forms she'd seen him take were frightening, none more so than the full mngwa form of those cats who were keeping watch over Hermione and Luna.

Her good mood that came from thinking about Harry's achievements was dashed when the two Gryffindor boys came in fifteen minutes late, talking loudly. She frowned, and shocked herself by thinking. 'Why couldn't he have been more like the twins?' Merlin! She'd never would have believed that she'd be wishing for more like those red headed terrors, but it was true, their younger brother would have been _much_ more bearable if he'd taken after them. For all the mayhem they created, Fred and George Weasley were much like their father had been at their age, inquisitive, inventive, mischievous, clever, kind, and ever ready to jump into whatever trouble that might be in front of them for a good cause, or if it looked like fun.

This younger Weasley though didn't appear to posses a single one of Arthur's good qualities. When he had the hide to say. "Imagine the look on old McGonagall's face if she caught us sneaking in late?" it got on her last nerve, so she leapt off the desk, transforming in mid-air so that she landed in human form, and ended up putting two of her own house on detention in their first class for their stupid cheek.

* * *

Two other First years caught their eye in the first month because, like Hermione and Luna, they were far and away better than anyone else in their year. One was in Ravenclaw, one of a pair of Indian twins, Padma Patil, and the other was in Slytherin, Daphne Greengrass. Harry and Nev only shared Herbology with Daphne, but Susie, Draco, Minerva and Filius had glowing reports of her performance in Transfiguration and Charms, and Hermione and Luna reported the same for Potions. By the end of September, they had approached the Patil and Greengrass families to offer their daughters places in the private tutoring group.

Both families were old Pureblood families who were mired in the old ways of noble house influence, so they jumped at the chance of getting their daughters close to the young Duke Potter and possibly marrying into the House of Potter. The fact that the Heir to the Noble and Ancient House of Longbottom and second Heir to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black were also in this group just added more opportunities, so both girls' fathers signed the forms as quickly as they could.

Even though strictly speaking the magical guardian's permission was all that was needed, they got Hermione's parents and Xeno to sign the forms for them to transfer to the private tutoring group first. Minerva visited Hermione's parents one night and she only had to tell them how much more prestigious and advanced the group she wanted to join was to get them to sign without a qualm. The Grangers were unfortunately academic snobs who were more concerned with Hermione's standing than her happiness (Come on, they were _dentists_ for Merlin's sake but insisted on being addressed as _Doctor_!), so this was what had sold them on the idea. To be fair, Hermione's father did try to ask to pay for any additional fees but Minerva told him that that had already been covered for the small group Hermione was joining. All Xeno needed was to be told by someone he trusted that this would be good for Luna, and he signed straight away.

Minerva and Filius took great delight in taking the signed parchments stating that four other First years were joining the Duke's party to Dumbledore, because it was all in accordance with the rules and he couldn't do a thing about it. He tried to accuse them of deliberately excluding Professor Slughorn, as the Head of Daphne Greengrass's school house, but Minerva informed him that she had advised Slughorn but he hadn't wanted to have anything to do with the matter, muttering something about ungrateful little minxes.

They weren't surprised to find Hogwarts had created the additional rooms for the girls when the agreements had been signed, and their elves had brought all of the girls' things to their new rooms. The girls were all excited about their new accommodations, because they'd gone from sharing dormitory rooms with at least four other girls and a bathroom down the hall, to having their own room, and a private bathroom shared with just one other girl (Hermione with Luna and Padma with Daphne). Hermione was the only one of them who was used to private bathrooms at all, because Magical Britain hadn't caught up with that idea as yet, so it was an incredible luxury to the other girls. In the past month, Nuni and Indu had bonded with the girls quite a bit, so they still slept on their beds as much as they did on Harry's.

* * *

As the month of October progressed, they were all getting frustrated by being held back by other students in their regular classes, even Hermione who hadn't known about magic until Professor McGonagall came to their house was quite far ahead of most of the other students now. They decided to pull out of everything except for Herbology after Hermione was attacked at Halloween.

The last class of the day was Charms and Hermione made the mistake of trying to help Ron Weasley when he was failing abysmally in his attempts to do the levitation charm. As they were leaving the class, the little bastard had made sure she heard all of the mean spirited things he was saying about her, and the other Gryffindor First years were agreeing with him so she ran off in tears.

She'd disappeared by the time they got clear of all the students who were crowding around to see Nev laying into Weasley for saying those horrible things about Hermione and making her cry, and they couldn't find her in any of the expected places. When Harry realised that as Nuni was missing as well she must have gone to Hermione, he reached out to her over the link, but Nuni pushed back that Hermione just needed time to settle down and she was with her. The strange thing in that was that he could also feel Hermione agreeing with Nuni through the link, but he left them to deal with it, trusting that his familiar would call him if he was needed.

They were concerned that she hadn't returned by the time the Halloween feast started, but checking with Nuni again got the same response, so they went to the feast. Soon after the feast started though, Hogwarts' Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher rushed into the hall, shouting about a troll in the Dungeons, before fainting rather dramatically. Dumbledore shouted for the prefects to take the students back to their common rooms while the teachers dealt with the issue, and Harry frantically pushed on the link to Nuni to find out where they were so that they could come and get them, but the response this time was a flash of fear and rage that he'd never felt from the mngwa before so he used Nuni's mind as an anchor to pop straight to where they were.

He arrived in a toilet, facing a frightened Hermione and a spitting Nuni, but there was a horrible smell as well, and when he turned around, he saw where it was coming from. It appeared that Professor Quirrell hadn't been making up the troll, because there was a fully grown mountain troll standing in the toilet, its head almost touching the ceiling. The troll roared and tried to raised its club, but it got confused when its fist and club kept hitting the ceiling. At that moment, Nuni changed into her full mngwa form and leapt at the troll with a spitting snarl, and when he saw the troll hit her, Harry transformed into a mngwa and leapt at the troll as well.

Very few creatures had any hope of standing up to two mngwas, and therefore the troll had been disembowelled and had its throat ripped out, one arm almost ripped off and the other torn up as well, in less than half a minute. Harry and Nuni withdrew as the troll thrashed about on the floor, rapidly bleeding out, and they changed back into their normal forms when it appeared that the danger was past. Hermione desperately threw her arms around Harry when he knelt to make sure she was OK, and at that he realised that they needed to be gone before anyone else arrived, so he called Nuni to him. As soon as she jumped to him, he wrapped an arm around her and popped the three of them back to the common room in Corvus Tower.

The others were taken aback when he cut through their questions and snapped at Tally to make sure that Hermione was OK, because he never spoke to anyone like that, especially not the elf who was like a second mother to him. Tally understood that he was just worried for the girl though and popped her off to her bathroom to examine her while Harry examined Nuni to ensure that she hadn't been badly hurt by the troll. Aside from being quite tender from the blows she'd received, Nuni was fine, so he gave her a hug and sent her off to get some rest.

Soon after that, Tally popped out to say that Miss Hermione was fine, and Harry knelt down to hug her and thank her for that. While he was there, Tally checked him over to satisfy herself that he didn't have any significant injuries. Harry knew better than to try and argue with her when she had that look in her eye, so he shut up and let her.

* * *

As soon as they could get away, Minerva and Filius arrived to make sure that they were all OK, because when they saw the way the troll had been ripped up in the toilet, they were pretty sure what had done it, even though Dumbledore and the other teachers were speculating about dragons and griffins and the like. Really, how did they think a dragon would have fitted into a toilet like that, and how would it get into and out of there for that matter? It wasn't as though the toilet was charmed to magically expand, there was no reason for anything like that.

When they saw Harry limping a little (the troll had gotten in a few hits on him as well), they knew that he had been involved in the battle and Minerva asked. "You changed into a Ming-wah?" Harry nodded. "Nuni was getting hit by the troll and needed help."

Minerva nodded at that. "I presume that Miss Granger was also in there, and that was why the two of you went there?" Harry nodded again.

"Is she alright?" Harry gave another nod. "Yes, Tally checked her over and assured us that she was fine, so it looks like Nuni and I getting a little beaten up was the worst of the damage."

Minerva quirked a wry smile at that. "I'm not sure the troll would agree with you on that Harry." He grinned as he replied. "Well it shouldn't have gone into a girls' toilet and threatened my friend!"

Hermione had come out of her room as they said that and rushed over to give Harry a hug, joining in the laughter at his comment, but the laughter quickly died when Harry turned serious again.

"What did Quirrell let a troll into the castle for Auntie Minnie?"

She frowned. "The only thing I can think of is that he wanted everyone out of the way so that he could go after what Dumbledore is hiding in the castle."

"Let me guess, in that third floor corridor that the students were all but dared to check out with those threats of dying a most painful death?"

She scowled at that. "Indeed! Even an old fool like him must have known that he ensured that the students would have to go there by saying that! I only hope that no students are harmed by the cerberus that is guarding the entrance to the tunnels where it's hidden."

That got a reaction. "A _cerberus_?"

"Yes. She belongs to Hagrid, the gameskeeper. Only Hagrid would call something like _that_ Fluffy! He's a gentle soul and a good man, but his idea of what is and isn't an appropriate pet is certainly way off the mark. He is also totally devoted to Dumbledore, suspiciously so in my opinion, so anything said in front of him is most likely to get back to Dumbledore."

Leaving the issues of a cerberus called Fluffy and Hagrid's dubious loyalties aside, there was a bigger question here.

"What's Dumbledore hiding there Auntie Minnie?"

She sighed. "The Philosopher's Stone. It can supposedly transmute base metals to gold and produce the elixir of life. The stone was being kept in a vault at Gringotts until Dumbledore had it removed, just before that very vault was supposedly broken into. I dare say that your uncle Gringott will have something to say about _that_ claim. Dumbledore used that as an excuse to bring the stone into Hogwarts, but instead of hiding it somewhere safe like the Headmaster's chambers, he put it out in the general area of the castle and told everyone about it. We…." Waving a hand at Filius and herself. "Have been involved in setting the so-called protections on the thing, but they are a farce, a competent First year student would be able to get past them. The old bastard's playing games, and I just hope that none of our students are hurt or killed by them."

Harry looked more thoughtful than shocked when she finished, and after he'd had a moment to ponder on the matter, he asked another question. "Who is the owner of the Philosopher's Stone Auntie?"

She looked at him for a moment, wondering where he was going with this, before she answered. "The wizard who created it, Nicolas Flamel. Dumbledore was his alchemy apprentice nearly a century ago."

"Do you think he knows what Dumbledore is doing?"

Minerva looked at Filius, but after thinking for a moment he shook his head. "No, Baron Flamel is absolutely brilliant in alchemy and the other areas of magic where he excels, but in other matters he can be quite clueless. He was nearly four hundred and sixty years old when the French Revolution broke out, but he was so trusting that he allowed him and his wife to be taken by the revolutionaries. He almost ended up being executed in the Bastille along with his wife before his supporters managed to spirit him out of there and across the channel to England, where he took up residence in one of his family's Baronies near London that they'd won in the Norman Conquest in seventeen ninety. As the Comte De Flamel, he still has his titles and holdings in France, but he has never returned because his wife was executed there. He has built up his holdings and fortune even further in Magical Britain over the past two hundred years, but in the late eighteen nineties, he was seduced into taking on an apprentice for the first time in hundreds of years."

Filius glanced over at Harry. "That apprentice was, of course, Albus Dumbledore. Unfortunately for Dumbledore, Baron Flamel had left the management of all his holdings to his Steward since he established himself in Magical Britain, so he wasn't able to get his hands on Baron Flamel's fortune while he was alive. Because of that, as soon as Dumbledore had earned his mastery in alchemy, he went off to build up a reputation for himself to get the recognition that he believed he was due. Gringotts will not release any information about customers' wills of course, but there is considerable speculation that Dumbledore has been named as the sole beneficiary of Nicolas Flamel's vast fortune. If this is true, it would be in Dumbledore's interest to ensure that the Philosopher's Stone is stolen or destroyed."

Harry nodded thoughtfully as he mused, murmuring, "Thanks Uncle Fili." After a while, he looked up at Minerva. "If it's in Dumbledore's interest for something to happen to the Philosopher's Stone, wouldn't it be in everyone else's interest to ensure that Baron Flamel is made aware of what games Dumbledore's playing with the thing he needs to keep himself alive?"

The others looked at each other at that, but it didn't take long for them to start nodding. Yes, Nicolas Flamel surely needed to know that the thing he needed to stay alive with was being used as bait in some plan that only Dumbledore was aware of, and perhaps more importantly, he needed to know the games his ex lover and probable heir was playing with his life.

It was quickly decided that Augusta and Frank Longbottom would be the best ones to approach Baron Flamel and fill him in on what was going on.

While Flamel didn't want to believe what he was being told, his Steward, the grandson of the Steward who had ensured that Dumbledore didn't manage to rob him blind back when he was his apprentice, reminded him of the things that Dumbledore had done over the close to a century that he'd known him.

* * *

Dumbledore was shocked when a troubled Baron Flamel suddenly arrived at Hogwarts to collect the Philospher's stone. The fact that Flamel's grim faced Steward refused to leave the Baron alone with him both infuriated and frustrated Dumbledore, because with the Steward there, there was no way for Dumbledore to cast any compulsion or memory charms over Flamel, and the arguments that had always worked before about the Philosopher's Stone only being safe in his care weren't working any more.

Given that the only way to prevent him taking the Philosopher's Stone would be to kill one or both of them and forcibly change the memories of whoever was left alive, and the fact that Hogwarts would most probably tell the others if he did this, he gave in and went off to bring the Philosopher's Stone to his office. He tried one last time to talk Nicolas out of taking the Stone away from Hogwarts, but had no choice but to give in and let him take it.

After they'd left, Dumbledore decided that if he couldn't control Flamel any more, then he'd let Voldemort deal with him. He'd always been willing to accept the possibility that Voldemort would manage to get the stone when he used it as bait, especially as he was planning on having Voldemort get rid of the Potter brat for him to pave the way for him to defeat Voldemort once he'd located and gotten rid of those horcruxes, so he was prepared to let Voldemort have a win until then.

He chuckled to himself when he went to speak to Quirrell. Did Voldemort really believe that a wizard of his calibre wouldn't feel his presence in the idiot teacher? Nevertheless, he had a task to complete here and he _confided_ in Quirrell that he would require his assistance to dismantle the protections for the Philosopher's Stone, because its owner had come to collect it and take it back to his manor, letting the name of the Manor slip casually.

As expected, _Quirrell_ told him that he had just been advised that he had some urgent family business to attend to before he would be able to assist him in dismantling the protections, and left Hogwarts soon afterwards. As Dumbledore didn't know about Augusta and Frank's earlier trip to inform Nicolas Flamel of what was going on, he had had no way of knowing that they had left Nicolas with a means of calling for help. Therefore, he had no way of predicting that soon after Quirrell/Voldemort turned up with some trusted Death Eaters, so would Amelia Bones and her most trusted Aurors, including Frank, Alice, Moody, Angela, Sirius, Remus, Severus and….Harry?

Angela and his other guardians were going to tear strips off of Harry later for following them into a battle with Death Eaters, but for now they needed to deal with the Death Eaters. Sirius grabbed Harry and shoved him into a corner where he'd be safe, telling him to stay there so that he didn't distract them and get them killed. Harry was chastened by that and tried to do as he was told, but when he saw Death Easters trying to sneak up behind them, he began sniping at the Death Eaters from behind cover to stop them.

The most dangerous spells he'd been taught so far were banishing and blasting spells, but these were working well enough to throw the Death Eaters off balance long enough for the Aurors to deal with them. It was all going quite well, until Quirrell noticed the boy and Voldemort forced him to turn around so he could see for himself (Quirrell had abandoned the turban that he normally used to cover up the fact that he had another face growing out of the back of his head for this attack). It only took one look for Voldemort to work out who the boy had to be and he commanded Quirrell to take him.

* * *

Harry had stayed under cover as he was told, so at first all Quirrell was doing was blasting things around him, but with Voldemort channelling his magic through Quirrell, the cover that Harry was using was disappearing quickly. All too soon, Harry was thrown out into the open when what he had been hiding behind was blasted away and before Voldemort realised what he was doing and could stop him, Quirrell threw a killing curse at him.

They were all frozen for a moment by the soul rending scream that was ripped from Quirrell's throat when the killing curse rebounded and he began to burn up. It started with his wand arm turning to ash and dropping away as if it was a cigarette, then the effect started marching across his torso. Amelia and the Aurors noticed that the Death Eaters were busy clutching at their dark marks in agony, so they promptly proceeded to put them all out of their misery.

When Quirrell/Voldemort had been reduced to a pile of ash, Angela rushed over to make sure that Harry was alright. As soon as she'd convinced herself of that, she started screaming at him for placing himself at risk like that. After nearly ten minutes of that, Nicolas tried to rescue the boy by asking who he was.

Angela stood there with her arms around Harry and tears streaming down her face, too distraught to speak and Sirius wasn't in too much better a state at that point, so Frank did the honours. "Baron Flamel, may I have the honour of presenting Duke Henry James Potter, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter, and Heir to the titles of Duke Black and Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black."

Even though he was hampered by the way Angela was holding him, Harry managed to sort of bow his head and say. "It is a pleasure to meet you Baron Flamel."

Flamel smiled as he bowed and said. "And it is an honour and a pleasure to meet you Duke Potter."

Once Angela had managed to get herself under control, the rest of the introductions were made, and they discussed why Voldemort and his Death Eaters would have suddenly attacked the Manor.

No-one there questioned the fact that Dumbledore must have told Quirrell that Nicolas had taken the Stone back to his Manor, because nothing else could explain it. Unfortunately, they couldn't prove that, so they had to restrain the Flamel Steward from going after Dumbledore in retribution. Amelia left Aurors there in case any other Death Eaters came, and the rest of them went back to Hogwarts or wherever.

* * *

It was amusing to watch Dumbledore getting more and more nervous when he didn't hear the expected news of Nicolas Flamel's demise, and Quirrell had disappeared without a trace. He tried to order Filius, and then Minerva, to take over the Defence Against the Dark Arts classes, and only just managed to stop himself from cursing them when they refused, citing too much work with their existing classes and responsibilities.

He also tried asking Angela, Sirius, Remus and Severus to take it on, going as far as to demand that they do so when they just gave him a flat. "No!" He ran off quickly when Angela grimly informed him that they would be taking matter up with the Hogwarts Board that Hogwarts' Headmaster for some reason believed that he had the right to demand that people under contracts to the Houses of Potter, Longbottom, Bones and Black ignore their responsibilities to their Houses to fill a gap in the teaching staff of Hogwarts.

As no-one else on the teaching staff had the background for Defence, Dumbledore had to take the classes on himself, and if the reports coming from Fred and George Weasley and others were anything to go by, a fifty year lapse from teaching had made him forget whatever he knew about it, if in fact he ever been any good at teaching.

The only two red headed Weasley menaces at Hogwarts that they didn't mind had become a part of their group in September after they overheard Professor McGonagall and Flitwick discussing Sirius and Remus's exploits with the Marauders. After dinner that night, they turned up at Corvus Tower to return something that they believed belonged to Sirius and Remus. When Sirius burst out laughing as they offered what appeared to be a blank piece of parchment, tapping it and saying "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good!" to make the map appear, they knew that they'd come to the right place.

The Weasley twins became common visitors to the Tower after that, along with their girlfriends Angelina Johnson and Katie Bell, and their best friend Lee Jordan. The family were well aware that it was asking for trouble to put the remaining Marauders together with the Weasley twins and Lee, but they provided some much needed laughter.

After Dumbledore took over the Defence classes though, the laughter dried up as everyone stuck in his classes was miserable. A question about whether they'd like to join the private tutoring group had them all but begging to be allowed to do so, which resulted in another round of meetings with parents. Angelina, Katie and Lee's parents weren't a problem, they happily signed as soon as the option was offered. It was the Weasley parents that were the problem, or rather Molly Weasley.

* * *

Their problems with Molly Weasley went back to the first day, when her two favourite boys, Percy and Ron, wrote to her complaining about being mistreated on the train and claiming that they were being victimised because some privileged kids were spreading lies about them. From that point, the problems just escalated because Molly believed any lie that Percy, Ron or Dumbledore told her. When she contacted Dumbledore, he told her that Minerva McGonagall was protecting a group of privileged students that she was connected to, and other teachers and students were following her lead. At that, Molly of course contacted Minerva to demand that Percy get his prefect's badge back and tell her how much trouble she'd be in if she ever tried to make scapegoats out of her boys again.

Molly Weasley met her match when she tried to dominate Minerva McGonagall though, as Minerva was angry about Dumbledore's games and what he'd done and tried to do to the people she loved, so she was giving as good as she got and the halls were reverberating with their shouting.

Molly certainly didn't appreciate it when she tried to claim the moral high ground and Minerva burst out laughing, reminding her that it was common knowledge that she'd tried to sleep with any boy who's family was richer or more powerful than her's while she was at Hogwarts and that she'd been caught trying to slip love potions to more than a few of them.

Ron was too stupid and opinionated to know when to shut up and he always tried to make up stories to make himself look better, which led to quite a few incidents were Molly was contacting the school to abuse them over the unfair victimisation of her boy. The last straw was Ron's abusing Hermione at Halloween and the fact that that had almost led to her death with the mountain troll. Minerva was so incensed over that that she didn't bother involving Dumbledore, she just sent a letter to the Weasleys to say that if there was one more incident involving him, he'd be expelled and stripped of his magic.

That was enough to make Molly Weasley head straight to the school to attack her, but she didn't bothered checking who else was in the office, so she just burst into Minerva's office and tried to curse her right in front of the Director of the DMLE and two senior Aurors. Minerva ducked out of the way of the curse as the Aurors stunned Molly into next week.

They had to revive her to go through the protocols of arresting her, which meant that they and the teachers and students had to endure her screaming abuse at them as they marched her out of Hogwarts in magic suppressing cuffs. They also had to endure Dumbledore demanding that she be released and all charges be dropped. Eventually Amelia told him that if he didn't leave immediately he'd be arrested and charged with interfering with an active case of the DMLE, he started to tell her smugly that she couldn't do that in _his_ school when two things stopped him, the look in her eye that said that nothing would stop her or give her more pleasure, and memory of the night where he was informed that he would be ejected from Hogwarts if he continued to displease her. At that, he stepped aside and gave Molly Weasley some platitude about contacting Arthur for her.

From that day on, Molly Weasley pursued a vendetta against Minerva McGonagall and this dark abomination that Harry Potter had become, citing the fact that his guardians were _Blacks_ as proof that he had been turned into a dark wizard. It probably would have meant nothing to her to learn that it was Harry who gave Arthur the money he needed to pay the extremely hefty fines to get her released as an indefinite loan, she probably would have dismissed it as being nothing more than what he owed them for causing all this trouble if she did.

* * *

Their dealings with Arthur Weasley, on the other hand, were markedly different. When he read Minerva's letter about what had happened on the train and the next morning, he had contacted her and requested her assistance in arranging a meeting for him with Duke Potter and the other effected parties. Knowing that Arthur was a good man, Minerva did as he asked.

When he met with Harry and the others, Arthur first requested that they tell him what had happened on the train, and he grew angrier as he heard what his sons had done. He then asked Harry about the incident with Percy the next day and his shame for his family increased. What Arthur did next was the mark of a man of honour, he went down on his knee before them and abjectly apologised to each and every one of them for the actions of his sons and made a magical oath to make any reparations they deemed appropriate.

Harry demanded Sirius's help to drag Arthur to his feet and assured him that he, as the head of this branch of the Weasley family, was _not_ held responsible for the actions of his young sons, and after Arthur had had a chance to sit for a while and calm down with a few drinks, they parted on good terms.

Arthur then borrowed Minerva's office to talk to his sons and tell them how ashamed he was of them. Percy accepted it, because in the cold light of day he could see how ridiculously petty he had been and more importantly, how acting the way his mother had taught him to had made his father deeply ashamed of him. He understood the ramifications of the oath that his father had given _Duke_ Potter and his party, and vowed to change his ways, to make his father proud of him.

Ron, on the other hand, merely whined that they'd made those things up and it was _them_ who insulted him when he was looking for Harry Potter like his Mum told him to. Arthur didn't bother pointing out that his current comments were close enough to what the others had told him to leave little doubt that their version of events was the accurate one, he was more interested in what Molly had told him to do.

When he asked just what it was that his mother had told him to do, Ron remembered belatedly that he wasn't supposed to say anything to anyone about that and tried to avoid the question, but both his Dad and Percy kept at him until he gave in. "It wasn't anything! Mum said that the Headmaster wanted me to make friends with him and keep him away from the wrong sorts. The Headmaster is going to give me an allowance for doing that too! I'll have money to buy things I want like those rich prats!"

Arthur asked Percy to stay with Ron and went to ask Minerva if she could erase the memory of what he'd told them from Ronald. Minerva said that she couldn't, but Angela could, so they called her and asked her to come. Angela first went in and viewed the memories of Molly telling Ron what he was expected to do to get the full story, then she removed the memories of what Arthur and Percy had asked and he'd told them about that, and altered the memory of what he originally said to something that he'd think was clever and covered up what he was there for.

She left as soon as she'd done that, and as he came out of it Arthur told him to pay attention as if he'd been off with the pixies, and then told him to stay away from them or he'd get himself in more trouble. He cut him off when he started to say. "But Mum...", trying not to roll his eyes. "Just stay away from them! Now I've get back to work, but I want you two to stay out of trouble from now on!" With that, he went back to the Ministry.

That set the tone for their interactions with Arthur, whenever Ron or Molly did something stupid or hurtful, Arthur would be there to apologise for them. They had been half inclined to leave Molly in the DMLE's custody after she tried to curse Minerva, but that would have shamed Arthur and been hard on the children, so Harry had insisted that Arthur take the money and pay it back when he could afford it, as they knew the state of the Weasley finances, especially after Arthur married Molly Prewett.

That was why, when the twins wanted to join the group, they called for Arthur. They explained the problems they were all having with Dumbledore teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, and then Harry told him that the House of Potter had decided on suitable reparation for the slights against himself on the First of September. Arthur started to look worried until Harry smiled and held out the forms for Fred and George. "Sign these to give approval for Fred and George Weasley to join the private tutoring group sponsored by the Houses of Potter, Longbottom, Bones and Black."

Arthur burst out laughing at that and took the forms, gladly signing for the twins to join the group. Some parts of the Weasley family were becoming part of Harry's extended family.


	4. Keeping The Demons At Bay

**Still progressing with the next Heritage chapter, but it isn't going as quickly as this.**

 **Due to the changes here (Sirius never in prison and the like), the major events of the first three years at Hogwarts are being compressed into one year here, sorry if that confuses or upsets anyone ;^)**

 **Guess I should describe the power structure of this version of Magical Britain as well. Firstly, it's rule by the aristocracy, so with very few exceptions, the Noble Houses have the power in this world. For the Heirarchy, Most Noble Houses are Dukes, the highest rank in Magical Britain. Noble Houses are Barons or Earls. Minor Houses are** ** **the Gentry,** Baronets, Lairds and hereditary Bannerets, Knights or Esquires (yes, in _this_ world, they have been made hereditary to maintain status). Families are commoners. Foreign Houses have no place in the power structure of Magical Britain, but they can marry into British Houses. **

**A House's power in this Magical Britain is further determined by how long it has been established. Most Ancient Houses are those Houses that have been established since before the Norman Conquest, and Ancient Houses are those Houses which were established in the period between the Norman Conquest and when the Charter for Magical Britain was signed in the fourteenth century. Anything established after that was just a Noble or Minor House. With the exception of a handful of the original druid families who helped shape Magical Britain, Most Ancient or Ancient only applies to the Noble Houses. The old druid houses are the equivalent of Most Ancient Noble Houses in terms of deference they are due in the Wizengamot. I'm planning on having at least one, maybe two, Most Ancient Houses that aren't Noble. I think you'll work it out when it comes up ;^)**

 **The Wizengamot is made up of fifty seats, which represent the fifty Noble Houses of Magical Britain at the time the Wizengamot was created. Seats on the Wizengamot are claimed by right of rank, so if a dormant Most Ancient or Ancient House gets reactivated by the rightful heir successfully claiming it, whatever House holds the lowest ranking seat is pushed off. Similarly, if a Wizengamot seat is vacated (eg: by the dissolution of a House), the highest ranking claimant could take it.**

 **Wizengamot votes are calculated on the basis of the holdings associated with the titles held by the House, the votes accepted in the Wizengamot are capped at four hundred, as this represented the total holdings when the Wizangamot was created. For voting purposes, the votes of an Ancient House are automatically multiplied by a weighting factor of 1.25, and a Most Ancient House by a factor of 1.5.**

 **Existing titles and holdings can be rightfully claimed for a variety of reasons, or bestowed upon other Houses. This is one way the balance of power changes in the Wizengamot, the other is the creation or dissolution of alliances between the Houses. The dissolution of a House or Family is a separate matter, as it erases them from existence in Magical Britain.**

 **Other explanations will be added when they are relevant to the story line.**

 **Usual Disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.**

Minerva and Filius had fun betting on whether they could make Dumbledore pop a blood vessel when they took the advices to him that five more students, Gryffindor Third years this time, had transferred to the Noble Houses' private tutors group. They also brought the formal notification that the group was also withdrawing from the regular classes for Transfiguration, Charms, Arithmancy and Runes and going to private tutors for these subjects.

Dumbledore knew that at least one of those third years, Katherine Bell, was one of the top students of her year and was definitely the top student in her house, so he couldn't understand why McGonagall and Flitwick weren't upset about this. He was suspicious when their response was that these students were being held back by the ordinary students and they would be able to develop much better if allowed to progress at their own pace. Dumbledore was sure that he wasn't getting the full story here, and resolved to question Professor Vector and Babbling about their views on losing up to five good students from their classes.

He dismissed McGonagall and Flitwick, and then sat there looking at the information on the students in this group. With the possible exception of the Weasley twins, this group represented the majority of their best First and Third year students, but the _only_ classes that any of them were doing as part of Hogwarts now were Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures.

And yes, Flying, that didn't mean anything, but the way that stupid Hooch witch had been singing Duke Bloody Potter's praises to all and sundry just because he'd donated enough new brooms to replace their old school brooms because the new brooms were supposedly making it much easier for her students to learn to fly was definitely getting on his nerves.

It was hard to believe how in little more than two months, Potter and his group had turned everything upside down and made a mockery of his school!

* * *

It had seemed so simple ten years ago when he got those motions passed to legally require magical children in Britain to attend Hogwarts once they'd turned eleven and make sure they had to start in First year so that he'd have time to mould the Potter brat into the tool he needed him to be. Who could have known that the Founders had written inalienable rights for the students into the damned Hogwarts Charter? When his conscience popped up to remind him that it had been his duty to read and understand the Charter when he became Hogwarts' Headmaster, he sent it packing.

Part of his problem now was that he'd gotten the votes he needed to get those motions passed with the assurance that Hogwarts was and always would be the world's premier school of magic. When the figures started coming out to show how this group was doing better than the rest of the school but they were using independent tutors because the education that Hogwarts could offer wasn't good enough, he was going to be asked some very difficult questions about why they'd been tricked into forcing the children of their houses to go to a school that was found to be lacking.

He was beginning to think that taking on Potter's so-called family might have been a mistake on his part. The boy's father had been much more malleable even after Hogwarts, as had Black back then. Lupin had potentially been a problem, but a few compulsions here and there had been enough to make Potter and Black turn on him and drive him away.

Perhaps he should have paid more attention to Lily Evans, he had discounted her as nothing more than a moderately clever Mudblood, but it appeared to have been her influence that had forged these rejects of society into such a formidable force, her and Angela Fawley.

How had he never noticed the Fawley girl? He was sure that she had been nothing but a quiet little bookworm who never spoke to anyone but Evans, so how in Merlin's name had she turned into a witch who was capable of making the Wizengamot bend to her will? Yes, she was the daughter of one of the Ancient Pureblood families, but she'd never shown any inclination towards politics until she was made the boy's guardian and started using the Potter votes to crush her opposition with the skill of a veteran of the Wizengamot, and that was before she drew the Houses of Longbottom, Bones and Black into their alliance.

Merlin, four of the most powerful Houses in the Wizengamot together and the others she had in her pocket as well. He'd never realised how much clout the House of Prince had, even the werewolf's House had enough holdings to make itself heard when it spoke…... And that traitorous bitch McGonagall, how did he not know that she was a Baroness with substantial holdings and the influence to get her clan to align with her friends? Not to forget those damned Black sisters, they were consummate players of the game in the Wizengamot and swayed many to their cause.

No, it was never meant to go this way, and Potter was _definitely_ not supposed to be educated in how to wield his power as a Duke and Head of a Most Noble and Most Ancient House! He shuddered as he recalled how compelling the boy could be when he commanded with the full authority of his House and magic, no child should be able to do that!

Dumbledore sighed as he piled up the parchments and put them away, he would find no answers there. He was already calling in whatever favours he could to try and get people who understood these things to go through the Hogwarts Charter and rules, hoping that they could find a way around the bind that Potter's people had put him in, but for now he needed to attend to his duties before they found something else to use against him.

* * *

They had to laugh at Fred and George, because neither twin could handle not sharing a room with the other. When they made their wishes known to the family and were moved in together, Hogwarts removed the fifth new bedroom and made the fourth larger to fit the two beds in more comfortably. Hogwarts also added a balcony that was quite large enough to allow a number of people to come and go by broomstick. Their wards ensured that only members of their group could access it, or even see it, but it made life a lot easier with over half of the Gryffindor quidditch team living in their tower.

It wasn't just them who used the balcony for broomstick access though, as the original group loved to fly, and while it was taking a bit of encouragement to help Hermione and Padma past their issues, so do Luna and Daphne.

Harry just wished he could help Hermione get past the nightmares she was having about the troll. The first time she woke up screaming from a nightmare, Tally popped her straight into Harry's room and he held her while she went back to sleep, with Tally returning her to her own bed before dawn. After that night, Tally would move her or she'd go to Harry's room herself (Hogwarts had sensed her need and created a door to directly link their rooms) when it happened, but it was nearly every night. Harry didn't mind at all, because they both slept better when they were comforting each other, he just wished that she wasn't having the nightmares. The adults knew what was happening from Tally, but none of them said anything because they knew that Hermione only got the rest she needed when she was there with her protectors to keep her safe (Nuni was invariably curled up on the bed as well).

It wasn't only Hermione who had demons to slay though, Luna had been having nightmares ever since she saw her mother die a year and a half ago, and she'd had to deal with them herself up until she started at Hogwarts and could go to Hermione for comfort. She had another one the night of her birthday and turned up at the door from Hermione's room in tears. When she saw that Hermione was being comforted by Harry, she turned to leave but Hermione raced after her and brought her back. Luna felt much better after spending the night between them, and at their insistence she came to Hermione or Harry, or more often the both of them, from then on whenever she had a nightmare, or needed comforting for any reason.

Growing up in the country with the Weasleys as their only magical neighbours, Luna had never had many friends, so her eleventh birthday party was the biggest one she'd ever had. The group had now grown to thirteen, and all their other friends from the regular houses came as well, so the common room in the tower was fairly crowded.

On top of that, while the Lovegoods were better off than the Weasleys, they weren't exactly rich, so she'd never received a present like the Nimbus 2000 she got from Harry before. She understood that the money was nothing to him, but as always it was the thought that counts and him getting her a broom like that because she loved to fly had her in tears (and got him the biggest kiss he'd ever had).

* * *

About two weeks after Luna's birthday, Angela and Sirius were called to bring Harry to Gringotts. Finding Amelia and Sir Nigel Forsyth, Steward of the House of Flamel in the Head Goblin's office was a surprise, but not as much as being told that Nicolas Flamel was dead. Seeing the confusion on their faces, Gringott waved to Amelia to explain.

"After the battle at his Manor, I had a discussion with Baron Flamel about the fact that, as someone had put out word that he had the Philosopher's Stone there, more people were bound to be coming after it. The Baron decided that the risk of a monster like Voldemort getting their hands on it and using it to keep themselves alive was unconscionable, so he destroyed it."

Harry stared at her. "But he needed the Stone to create the elixir of life, he can't live without it!"

Amelia shook her head. "No, he can't, that was why Baron Flamel died yesterday."

Harry was aghast, and waited for her to say that it wasn't what he thought she meant, but she didn't.

Seeing the guilt on Harry's face, Sir Nigel reached over to squeeze his shoulder. "It wasn't your fault lad, it was that old bastard who set up Baron Flamel as a target. The Baron was getting tired of this life anyway, he's been missing his wife Perenelle for over two centuries now so it was an easy decision for him to make to destroy the stone and prevent it being used by the wrong sort. Especially after he had found a worthy successor who he could trust to leave what he had to."

Harry looked from him to Gringott suspiciously and the goblin nodded. "Yes Harry, Baron Flamel made a new will that night and left everything to you, including his name. You were made the heir to his titles and holdings both here and on the Continent, so you will be Baron Flamel in Britain and Comte De Flamel in France, and Head of the Noble and Ancient House of Flamel on both sides of the channel….. The Potter fortune is one of the biggest in Britain, but the Flamel fortune will at least treble it, and I expect it could well prove to be even more than that."

"So I've inherited titles and houses on both sides of the channel and a huge fortune, what am I?…." Harry stopped and turned to the Steward. "Would you be prepared to stay on as Steward of the House of Flamel Sir Nigel? I won't hold you there if you want to go, but you know the Flamel estates like no-one else could, so if you didn't wish to move on, I would appreciate it if you stayed on in your role and managed the holdings of the House of Flamel for me as you did for Baron Flamel. The only possible change that I can think of is that the Potter Regent or Steward will hold any voting proxies and will be casting the Flamel votes."

He was relieved when Sir Nigel responded that he would be honoured to assume the role and responsibilities of the Steward of the Noble and Ancient House of Flamel under Duke Potter. As soon as Harry's claim to the Flamel titles and Houses had been accepted, they exchanged the requisite oaths and felt the acceptance of the magical contract between them. Harry also made Angela Regent for the Houses of Flamel then and there. When the Flamel Steward told him that Albus Dumbledore actually held the voting proxies for the Houses of Flamel, Harry promptly cancelled them and transferred them to Angela and Andromeda.

When they were going through the status of the holdings and treasures of the House of Flamel, Harry was getting more and more angry, because Dumbledore had many priceless heirlooms of the House of Flamel in his possession and was making use of the Flamel properties to live a life of luxury, He demanded that Dumbledore be immediately blocked from all Flamel properties and that everything belonging to the House of Flamel be retrieved as a matter of priority.

* * *

How to recover the Flamel treasures without a confrontation was an issue, until Angela grinned and suggested that they use the same trick to pull the wool over Dumbledore's eyes and get him out of the way as they had last time, calling a special meeting of the Hogwarts Board to investigate budget irregularities.

 _This_ time, however, they'd be there in force, as the Houses of Potter, Black, Longbottom, Bones and McGonagall all had the right to claim seats on the Board, and this time they would be claiming them as they weren't needed elsewhere to ensure that a more important trial went as it should. There were a dozen seats on the Board that were allocated by right of rank, so their two Most Ancient and three Ancient Houses were enough to push five Noble Houses off the Board. It was satisfying to see that four of Dumbledore's supporters and Lucius Malfoy were the ones who were pushed off.

With them knocking out most of Dumbledore's support and controlling almost half of the votes on the Board (it used the same weighting factors as the Wizengamot, so their five seats controlled six and three quarter votes), Dumbledore couldn't run roughshod over the meeting like he had last time, and he was on the ropes, as the Muggles say, soon after the meeting started.

Dumbledore was dejected when he left the Board meeting, because _none_ of his usual tricks had worked. While he had always been able to sway the Board and convince them that their concerns were baseless before, now he was being called to account for everything spent from the schools coffers in the past decade… Augusta Longbottom had been calling for the past fifty years since he became Headmaster but Lord Macmillan had convinced the rest of the Board that they couldn't expect the proper records to be kept past ten years thank Merlin… _That_ was enough to deal with, he knew that there was no way to justify much of what he had taken and spent, so he would have to find some way to repay much of it. If that wasn't enough, the Board had assigned Duchess Black and McGonagall to oversee his activities as Headmaster! That was an obvious statement of their lack of trust in him!

When he reached his office, he froze, stunned, because it had been stripped of most of its treasures and more than a few of the portraits. He rushed through to his chambers to find the same thing had happened there. How could anyone access his office and chambers to steal these things?

When he returned to his office, Dumbledore spied a parchment sitting on the desk. He picked it up to read it, but collapsed into his chair as he did so. The document was a notification from Gringotts that the beneficiary of the estate of Nicolas Flamel had required them to recover all items belonging to the House of Flamel. The document itemised all items recovered, including his pensieve, which had been one of two that existed in Britain, and was considerably better than the one that the Ministry of Magic had.

Dumbledore's blood ran cold when he read the advice that the memories collected with the pensieve would be reviewed, and any which appeared to belong to him would be returned, as many of those memories could potentially send him to Azkaban.

After the list of items recovered for the House of Flamel, there was a further advice that they had also recovered items belonging to the Houses of Potter, Black, Longbottom, Bones, McGonagall, Fawley, Prince and Lupin as well as Filius Flitwick, Nymphadora Tonks and the Goblin Nation. These items were itemised underneath their names, and Dumbledore broke into a sweat as he read them as he knew that many of these items had effectively been stolen from their rightful owners and he had either removed the memory of their existence or compelled their owners to accept his lies about what happened to them.

The item that worried him the most though was the Sword of Gryffindor. It had been discovered in a Noble House vault nearly two centuries ago and the House gifted it to Hogwarts as a Founder's treasure. The goblins had been demanding the return of the sword, which as the magical brother of Excalibur was a goblin treasure that was supposed to have been returned to them upon Gryffindor's death, for over nine centuries. In his tenure as Headmaster at Hogwarts, Dumbledore had replied to hundreds of these demands with the assurance that he had no idea what had happened to it. Now the goblins had proof that he had been telling them that he had no idea where it was when the sword had been right there in his office. Earning the ire of the Goblin Nation when he had a large squad of goblin warriors currently residing inside of Hogwarts could not bode well for him at all!

His fear of the goblins was not quite enough to overshadow his outrage that not only had the irreplaceable treasures that had been taken from him been in his possession for long enough for him to come to consider them his, but he was hereby barred from any of the Flamel properties around the world that he'd been using for nearly a century and someone had stolen the Flamel titles, power and fortune that were rightfully _his_!

At dinner in the Great Hall that night, he glared at McGonagall, vowing to make her pay for her part in this, but the infuriating woman just smirked at him as if challenging him to. 'Do your worst!'

Glaring at Potter or Black gave him no better satisfaction, but he went pale when he met the eye of the head of the goblin guard, because his gaze was a palpable threat of retribution for the sword.

* * *

They were laughing about Dumbledore's reaction as they headed back up to their tower, but Harry suddenly stopped, as he was hearing a cold, inhuman voice. "….. rip….. tear….. kill….."

When he looked at Remus and asked if he could hear it, Remus concentrated but shook his head, he could hear _something_ , but nothing like a voice.

Harry heard it again "... soo hungry... for soo long….." He looked at Remus but he shook his head again.

"….. kill….. time to kill….." The voice was fading and it sounded as though it was moving downwards somehow, so Harry snapped. "Come on!" and ran for the stairs.

Back on the ground floor, Harry heard another snatch of speech. "….. blood…... I _smell blood_!" coming from below them and took off again.

In the upper level of the Dungeons, he was turning around, trying to hear that voice again when Hermione asked. "What's that?"

When he turned to look where she was pointing, he could see something shiny on the wall down the corridor. They headed that way cautiously, nervously watching for anything lurking in the darkness. Foot-high words had been painted on the wall between two torches in what looked like blood, glimmering in the light of the torches. 'THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE.'

Susan pointed to the side, asking. "What is that…. underneath that torch?" in an unsteady voice.

As they were moving closer to get a better look, Harry jumped when he stepped in the large puddle of water on the floor. Remus grabbed his arm to steady him and they went closer to the message, their eyes fixed on a dark shadow beneath it. They realised what it was at the same time, it was Mrs Norris, the caretaker's cat, hanging from the torch bracket. She was stiff as a board, and her eyes were wide and staring.

They stood there, staring at her for a moment, then Remus said. "We need to get out of here before anyone else turns up!"

It took them a moment to get his point then they nodded, popping back to the tower.

When the others were safely inside, Remus and Severus went back down to get what information they could.

They didn't really find out anything they didn't already know, as Dumbledore was just fuddling about and Filtch was ranting and demanding retribution for his cat. They confirmed that the cat had been petrified, and that Dumbledore had no idea of what to do about it. The only thing of note was that Remus's werewolf eyes spied a long line of spiders leaving the castle through a crack in the wall near the painted warning.

They congregated in the common room to try and work this out. Harry started with the obvious question. "What was that writing on the wall about? The Chamber Has Been Opened… What was that supposed to mean?"

"You know, that rings a bell…." Remus answered. "I think someone told me a story about a secret chamber at Hogwarts once….."

Angela shook her head at Remus, exasperated. "You really can't remember where you heard the story about the Chamber Remi? I'm beginning to think that you must have hit your head a few too many times on those pranks that Sirius was so damned fond of! Binns told us in class! Someone from Slytherin asked him... Let's see if I can remember it what he said... OK yes, this is what he told us….." She started recounting Binn's words.

"You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago, though we are the uncertain of the precise date, by four of the greatest witches and wizards of the age. They were Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin, and the four school Houses of Hogwarts have been named after them. They built this castle here, as far as possible from prying Muggle eyes, because it was an age when magic was feared by most people and witches and wizards suffered terribly from their persecution."

"For the first few years, the Founders worked in harmony together, seeking out youngsters who were showing signs of magic and bringing them to the castle to be educated. But then something happened and disagreements started between them. A rift grew between Slytherin and the others because Slytherin wanted to be more selective about the students who were admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be restricted to magical families only. He wanted to ban taking in students of Muggle parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy. After a while this developed into a serious argument on the subject between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and Slytherin left the school as a result of it."

"Reliable historical sources have reported the facts on this, but they have been subverted by the fanciful legend of the Chamber of Secrets. That story says that Slytherin had a hidden chamber built somewhere near or under the castle, of which the other founders knew nothing."

"According to this legend, Slytherin sealed this Chamber of Secrets to ensure that no-one would be able to open it until his own true heir returned to the school. As the story went, his heir alone would be able to unseal the Chamber of Secrets, and hence unleash the horror within to use it to purge the school of all who were in his opinion unworthy to study magic."

"The whole story was nothing but arrant nonsense of course, because the school has been searched for evidence of such a chamber many times over the centuries by many powerful and talented witches and wizards. None of them have ever found a shred of evidence that such a thing existed. It was nothing but a tale told to frighten gullible children."

"Binns was asked about what the 'horror within the chamber' meant and his response was. 'The horror was said to be some sort of monster, which only the Heir of Slytherin would be able to control.' After that he went back to insisting that the monster didn't exist and he got worked up to the point where he screamed. 'There is no Chamber and no monster!' Of course someone had to come back with. 'Well if the Chamber can _only_ be opened by the true heir of Slytherin, no one else _would_ be able to find it, would they?' And that was the last we got out of him because he just went back to ranting and raving."

* * *

As they were mulling that over, Harry had something else on his mind. After looking speculatively at Remus for a while, he turned to Angela, Sirius and Severus. "All jokes aside, when have you known Uncle Remus to forget a whole story like that?" They looked at each other in shock, and it didn't take them long to come back with "Never!"

Remus had no qualms about agreeing to be checked for memory tampering.

Angela and Severus both checked Remus and Sirius, then checked each other. And by the time they were finished they were all furious. Remus, Sirius and Severus all showed evidence of numerous compulsions and serious memory tampering that apparently started from around the time they first went to Hogwarts, and only stopped around the time that James and Lily were killed. Angela had apparently been spared the tampering, most probably because she had been considered beneath the notice of the wizard doing this.

Angela was certain that the magical signature on the tampering on all three of them was the same, and Severus confirmed that the signature on the other two at least was the same. No-one argued about who that must have been, because only one person could have had access to all three of them for that whole period, Albus Bloody Dumbledore!

Considering the fact that three out of the four of them had been tampered with, they called Minerva, Filius, Pomona and Poppy in to check them. Sure enough, they all had compulsions and memory tampering going back to when they first went to Hogwarts, and while the tampering had reduced in number and severity since they had withdrawn from Dumbledore's sphere of influence, they had instances going up to quite recently.

The intent behind the tampering was obvious, to push them all to behave as Dumbledore wanted them to. It was most obvious in Sirius, Remus and Severus, as they had all been interfered with to push Severus away from Lily after James' interest in Lily became apparent, and later Sirius had been compelled to distrust Remus and Remus was compelled to resent Sirius and James and leave rather than attempt to resolve their issues. It was only their love for James, Lily and Harry that had allowed them to finally overcome these compulsions.

With all of them showing this, they got worried for the children and tested the children. Harry, Neville, Susan, Draco, Hermione and Luna were clear as Dumbledore had never been allowed anywhere near them, but Daphne and Padma were showing some tampering, and the five Third years rather more. Dora showed evidence of tampering over the time she was at Hogwarts, but it didn't seem to be anything more specific than loyalty to Dumbledore.

Angela and Severus had the skills needed to release most of the compulsions and memory charms that they discovered, but some were so deep seated and layered that they weren't comfortable trying to interfere with them, so they decided that they should be left for a qualified mind healer.

Finding so much evidence of interference made them worry about who else had been interfered with, so they brought in the Arithmancy, Runes, Astronomy and Muggle Studies professors and Madam Hooch, all of whom were found to have been tampered with to some degree, but Angela and Severus managed to clear the charms from them. They did what they could to protect them from further interference, but the best protection would be to try and avoid being alone with Dumbledore.

They all agreed with Minerva that, in view of what had been done to everyone else, there was little chance that Hagrid hadn't been interfered with, but they were also fairly sure that he'd be needing a qualified mind healer to deal with what had been done to him, so they put him off until they were confident that they had a plan that would work. They didn't know whether Slughorn, Kettleburn and Filch were interfered with, and had to admit that they weren't overly bothered about them, as they weren't the most endearing characters.

They did worry about the rest of the family though, and Andie, Ted, Cissa, Augusta, Frank and Alice and Amelia all showed tampering to varying degrees when they were tested, though only Amelia, Frank and Alice needed mind healers to remove the compulsions and memory charms from them. They also brought in Arthur and Percy Weasley, and Percy was horrified that while Angela was able to deal with his tampering easily enough, his father had been interfered with to the extent that he would need a qualified mind healer to deal with the tampering. Percy was changing more and more as his eyes were being opened to what was going on around him.

Arthur didn't argue against the stance of the family that they were not prepared to risk exposing what they were doing by including Ronald, especially after Angela reminded him that she hadn't discovered any significant evidence of tampering when he got her to cover up the fact that Ron had admitted what he was doing on his mother and Dumbledore's orders to Arthur and Percy, and Percy pointed out that his behaviour was most likely natural, as he had been like this since he was a baby.

Plans were made for all of them to go to Potter Manor for the Christmas break to get the more serious charms dealt with by the mind healers, and they were putting together the plan to get Hagrid there as well to deal with what had been done to him. The plan was fairly simple, though it unfortunately involved using more compulsions and memory charms on him. The idea was to plant a compulsion and memories to show that Hagrid had suddenly been called to go and help his great aunt on his father's side by looking after her creatures for her while she was laid up with dragon pox. They were fairly confident that once he got there, with all the exotic creatures at Potter Manor he'd be delighted to stay, and hopefully they could get whatever had been done to him corrected.

* * *

While this was all going on, there was another incident at Hogwarts, and it was a student this time, Colin Creevy, a Muggleborn Gryffindor First year. Colin was an avid fanboy of the boy-who-lived, and was always trying to take pictures of Harry, two things that irritated Harry, but he'd never wanted anything like this to happen to him. He'd been found petrified like Mrs Norris, and he had apparently been trying to take a picture, because he was holding his camera up to his eye.

Minerva's expression as she was telling the story said that she had come close to hexing Dumbledore because when he'd wrenched the camera out of his hands, he hadn't cared at all that he'd almost broken the boy's fingers off. She said a small cloud of gas and the smell of burnt plastic had been released when he opened the back of the camera, and then he'd just thrown the camera on the floor and wandered off, muttering about the Chamber of Secrets being opened again. He'd apparently been most confused about _how_ the Chamber had been opened, so something special must have been required to open it. That, and the fact that that it had been opened _again_ were obviously the key elements of that news.

Another thing that Minerva and Poppy were angry about was that Dumbledore obviously had no intention of making any effort to get the potion that the healers at St Mungo's had told them was needed to reverse the effects of this petrification produced until the mandrakes in Hogwarts' greenhouses matured next spring, or summer, depending on how they grew. Apparently he had shrugged and said that they did not have access to the resources needed to do anything before that for a Muggleborn.

Harry popped straight off to Gringotts to see about getting the mandrakes they needed sourced from somewhere overseas where they were currently growing. While he was talking to him, he asked Gringott whether they'd found any reference in the goblins' records about creating a secret chamber for Slytherin somewhere around Hogwarts yet, and also filled him in on the latest information they had about the fact that the chamber had obviously been opened before, and the clues they had so far for what the monster might be. They were trying to work it out at Hogwarts, but Gringott had far more resources available to him via the Goblin Nation than they did.

* * *

When they were discussing the new clues about Slytherin's monster that night in the tower, Luna left everyone speechless with an apparently totally off the wall sad comment. "We might have to put this one back and get ourselves one who's a bit brighter Hermione." Hermione's face quickly cycled through confusion, to blushing with embarrassment, to flushing with anger before clearing a look of realisation and her laughing response of. "No, I'd rather keep him Luna, he's not that bad." confused the others almost as much as Luna's statement. When Luna responded with "I'd like to keep him too, but…. How could he miss this?" The others started realising that these two brilliant young witches knew something that they didn't, and the girls at least started smiling as they'd caught on to part of what they were talking about.

They were acutely aware that Hermione totally deserved the title of 'The smartest witch of her generation' that was already spreading rapidly, and that Luna surpassed her sometimes with her flashes of brilliance. That was why they didn't mind that they were in the dark as to whatever realisation that the girls had obviously made, but they were kicking themselves that they hadn't caught onto the other part of what they were talking about, as it was now so obvious. George got an approving look and a kiss on the cheek from Katie when he showed himself to be the first of the weaker sex who'd caught onto _that_ when he snorted with laughter.

Most of the boys were still ignorant of the more apparent part when Hermione's comment of. "Really, Harry! What rare talent do you have that hasn't been seen before outside of the line of Syltherin?" Pointed them towards the realisation that Luna had made.

The subject of their comments face-palmed himself where he was sitting between the two girls as he saw how obvious it was, now that they'd pointed it out. The fact that only he could hear the voice, the legend that said that only the true heir of Slytherin could open the Chamber and release the monster, the way it was moving around the castle without being seen, it _had_ to be a serpent of some kind!

Hermione laughed fondly at him. "See Luna, he _was_ capable of working it out, with a little help."

Daphne arched an eyebrow at them and asked with a smile. "Would you three care to share with the rest of the class?"

Harry shook his head as he laughed at himself. "What these two brilliant witches are pointing out is that the answer has been right in front of us all the time. I heard the voice because I have the same talent as the line of Slytherin, I'm a parselmouth!" The others groaned as he hugged the girls and they both kissed him on the cheek, because he was right, now that they'd pointed it out, it was so obvious!

With that, they jumped into trying to work out what type of serpent could match the clues that they had about it so far, but the girls kept looking at the three on the couch with bright eyed smiles, they were so cute!

* * *

It was when Susie contacted her Aunt to tell her that they were getting closer to work out what was doing the attacks at Hogwarts that the shit hit the fan. They'd mentioned the initial incident, how Harry hearing a voice had led them to the warning painted on the wall and Mrs Norris, but they'd presumed that Dumbledore had learned his lesson and had been keeping the DMLE in the loop on the matter in accordance with his duties as the Headmaster, as it would have been utterly stupid not to, they presumed wrong.

Dumbledore murmured the command to stop the irate Director of the DMLE from coming through when she told him that he better have all the information about these attacks ready when she got there. However, as Hogwarts had control of all the wards, including the floo, he was dismayed to see Amelia come storming through anyway.

Minerva and Angela came in after nearly fifteen minutes of Dumbledore trying to evade the Amelia's questions and Amelia fighting not to hex the old fool. Dumbledore was outraged when Minerva handed Amelia a bundle of parchment that included everything that the family had put together on the attacks and the previous time the Chamber of Secrets had been opened (including the fact that a girl had been killed in one of the school's toilets and one Rubeus Hadgrid had been expelled for opening the Chamber of Secrets), shouting that she had no right to release school records to outside parties.

That finally pushed Amelia over the edge. "Shut up Dumbledore! What Deputy Headmistress McGonagall understands, but you for some reason apparently do not, is that the second anyone has been attacked the way the student who's currently petrified in the infirmary was, it becomes the responsibility of the DMLE to step in to investigate the matter and do what they can to resolve the matter without anyone else being attacked. Professor McGonagall looked into the matter you mentioned about the Chamber of Secrets being opened previously, to find that a student had actually been killed that time, and another student had been expelled for being responsible. Imagine my surprise to see that the student expelled was in fact Rubeus Hagrid, and he was employed here as an apprentice gameskeeper after Headmaster Dippert was dismissed for mishandling the matter to the extent that a student died, and you somehow managed to immediately take over as Headmaster."

She fixed Dumbledore with a look for almost a minute before snapping. "Get Hagrid up here immediately! We need more information about this!"

"Now Amelia, I don't think…."

She cut him off. "That's right Headmaster, you _don't_ think, and you better remember to address me as Madam Bones or Director Bones from now on or else! Now I just gave you a directive, get Hagrid up here now!"

When he just stood there, staring at her in shock, she gave up in disgust and turned to Minerva. "Professor McGonagall?" Minerva nodded and went to the fireplace to call for Hagrid.

When Hagrid arrived, he was looking nervously from Dumbledore to Amelia until Amelia said. "Ignore the Headmaster Mister Hagrid, you're just here to answer a few questions for me. Have a seat."

Minerva conjured a chair that was big and strong enough to hold him behind Hagrid and he sat down with a nod and a muttered. "Thank ye." before Amelia started talking.

"Now Mister Hagrid, you were expelled in your third year at Hogwarts in nineteen forty because you were accused of opening Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets and releasing the monster within, thereby resulting in a fellow student's death, one Myrtle Mumpton, did you?"

Dumbledore started to speak, but didn't get more than. "Now Amel….." out before Angela cast a 'Silencio!' over him. Amelia glanced at him with a frown before nodding to Angela. "Thank you, Duchess Black."

"Mister Hagrid, I apologise for the interruption, but we must know, did you, or did you not, open the Chamber of Secrets in nineteen forty, resulting in Myrtle Mumpton's death?"

"Wha'? NO! I'd ne'r do that! Don't know nuthin' 'bout no Chamber of Secrets!"

"I see, and are you a parselmouth Mister Hagrid?"

"Parselmouth? You mean snake speaker? No, wouldn' mind though, could talk to all sorts o' interestin' beasts if I could!"

"Can you explain to me why you were accused of being the one who opened the Chamber and expelled then Mister Hagrid?"

"Don' rightly know Ma'am, I got in trouble because a Aragog, an' they said he'd killed someone and expelled me for it, but Aragog swore that he hadn' hurt no one."

"Who, or what was Aragog Mister Hagrid?"

"Well, um, ya see Aragog's an acromantula an' I was raising him here."

Amelia looked a little shocked at that. "Well acromantulas are hardly suitable as pets, especially in a school, but can you tell me how an acromantula kills?"

Hagrid was obviously confused. He started to say that Aragog didn't do it again but she waved to tell him to get on with answering her question. "Well it'd generally be the venom from their fangs, but if they're big enough I dare say they could kill a body wi' their pincers?"

"So if someone was killed by one there'd be fang or pincer marks on the body?"

"Well yeah, have ta be!"

Amelia nodded. "Thank you Mister Hagrid. We have to deal with this and make sure no-one else gets hurt at Hogwarts first, but when that's done we'll see about getting that business properly cleared up for you."

Hagrid couldn't believe how this had gone, but he nodded his thanks, saying. "Yes ma'am, Thank ye Ma'am." He stopped to try and ask Dumbledore something about the roosters before lumbering out, but Amelia shook her head.

After he'd left, Amelia looked at Angela and she cancelled the silencing spell, only to have Dumbledore start shouting in outrage.

The look in Amelia's eye when she shouted, "Sit down and shut up!" at him was enough to make him do so.

"Alright Dumbledore, why was a boy accused of opening the Chamber of Secrets and causing Myrtle Mumpton's death and expelled when he obviously had nothing to do with it?"

"I had nothing to do with that, it was Headmaster Dippet!"

"Let's see about that, shall we?" She started looking for the Headmaster's portrait, nodding in thanks to Minerva when she pointed it out and getting Angela to silence Dumbledore again with a look.

"Headmaster Dippet!"

It took him a minute to react, but he did. "Yes? What?"

"I am Amelia Bones, the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and I need to ask you about the incidents around the opening of Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets just before you were dismissed as Headmaster."

He scowled at that. "I do not with to discuss it! I lost everything over that business!"

"I'm afraid that I must insist headmaster. For a start, why was Rubeus Hagrid accused of opening the Chamber and causing the death of Myrtle Mumpton when he wasn't a parselmouth?"

"Parselmouth? What's got to do with anything?"

"Well it was Salazar Slytherin's Chamber and the legend said that it could only be opened by his true heir, so it seems fairly obvious that that would the talent required to open it. Not to mention that if the girl had been killed by Mister Hagrid's pet, she would have had fang marks on her body."

"Oh yes, that was what Dumbledore used to convince the Board to dismiss me."

"Did he raise any of this before Mister Hagrid was expelled? Did anyone?"

Dippet's portrait shook its head. "No, young Tom Riddle brought it to our attention that Hagrid had been caught with the monster, but it got away before he could finish killing it. Dumbledore and the rest of the staff just wanted to get rid of him and his dark creatures before there were any more deaths…."

"Did you see any proof that Mister Hagrid's pet was the monster?"

"Proof? What proof did we need? Tom Riddle caught him red handed with the beast. The half-breed tried to say that his pet didn't do it, but we weren't going to take the word of something like him over that of a prefect who was our top student!"

Amelia frowned. "I see. Thank you Headmaster." She looked at Angela to cancel the spell again.

"From that, Headmaster, it is apparent that you were aware that Hagrid was innocent, but you only used that information to depose your predecessor after Hagrid had been expelled."

"I took Hagrid on as the apprentice gameskeeper when I became Headmaster..."

She cut him off. " _After_ you stood by and let them ruin his life when you had the information to present a case for him! And because of you, whoever actually opened the Chamber was left free to carry on with what they were doing!"

He started to respond but she cut him off again. "Shut up!…."

She looked at the parchments in front of her again, thinking. "Right! It's only a few days until Christmas Break. _**Everyone**_ except for selected teachers and my Aurors will be leaving Hogwarts for the break! If a student's parents can't be contacted, we'll find someone to look after them over the break. Dumbledore, _**you**_ will notify the parents of any students who were planning to stay that they're coming home and you damned well better get it done within the next day! You will also notify any teachers who aren't on the list to stay and help that they're leaving. We'll only have two weeks to try and find this thing and stop it so everyone will have to do their part!… wait… Dumbledore, what was Hagrid saying about roosters?"

He tried to wave the matter away. "Just a minor problem with the livestock, nothing to worry about…."

"I'll decide that! I asked you a question!"

He bristled at that, but he wasn't in the Wizengamot where he had the power so he had to give in.

"We've lost four roosters in the last month, the first two just disappeared and others were found with their necks broken."

Angela raised an eyebrow at that and made a note to tell the others. It was too bizarre to be a coincidence.

When it was agreed that the plan was in place and which teachers would be working with the Ministry to try and find this thing, Amelia went back to her office with the bundle of parchment from Minerva to organise the Aurors and unspeakables who were coming in to protect the students and try to stop Slytherin's monster.

Luckily, Hagrid had already told Dumbledore that he had to go and help his great Aunt, so he left the day after Amelia had him called to Dumbledore's office.

Once the Hogwarts Express had left, the castle was the emptiest that it had been in centuries. Dumbledore, Minerva, Filius and Professor Kettleburn were the only ones there aside from the team from the Ministry and a small number of the house elves.


	5. Snake Eyes

**I'm planning on a different diary holder for this one ;^)**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.**

By the time they got to Potter Manor, the healers who had been working on Hagrid were raging about criminal tampering. Quite aside from the numerous compulsions and memory alterations, they had found that on two separate occasions Hagrid had been bound severely enough to threaten his magic, and his very life.

The first had been when he was around eleven, so it was probably when he started at Hogwarts, his intellect and magic had been bound enough to put him below the level of most wizards of his age, and his growth had been bound to prevent him from realising anything close to his true size and strength. The second appeared to have been when he was thirteen, they believed it had been after he had been expelled from Hogwarts. On that occasion it appeared that it had been an attempt to bind his intellect and magic enough to turn him into an idiot squib, and the bindings on his growth had been reapplied then as well.

The magical signatures on these bindings had faded in over fifty years, but Angela swore that she recognised it as the same one as she'd found on the others. After fifty years, the effects of the bindings were also starting to fade, so his intellect and magic were slowly growing, though physically the fact that he was bound far past the end of his growth period meant that he never grew past ten feet tall, no more than two thirds of what he should have been.

They had an enjoyable Christmas, though removing all of the blocks and tampering from Hagrid and the others took almost until they were due to go back. They also didn't manage as much as they would have liked in discovering more about the Chamber of Secrets and Slytherin's monster.

The goblins had found records to indicate that an underground chamber had indeed been created for Salazar Slytherin, but no details about where it was. Similarly, even though between them, they'd spent hundreds of hours poring through tomes on magical creatures and serpents, they hadn't found any reference to snakes that petrified their victims other than Medusa, and they were pretty sure that wasn't what they were dealing with here.

What was worse was that the Ministry team hadn't found anything at Hogwarts, they'd gone through the castle with a fine toothed comb but they hadn't had any more success than the other searchers that Binns had mentioned. Dumbledore had been using his supporters to spread the story that the DMLE was trying to use the flimsy excuse of a rumour about some monster being loose in Hogwarts to close down the school. So, in the absence of any real evidence (a petrified Muggleborn student apparently didn't rate with those making the decisions), they were forced to allow the students to return to Hogwarts after the break. The only concession Madam Bones managed to wring from them was that the Aurors would be staying in the castle for as long as necessary to protect the students.

Hagrid didn't return to Hogwarts with the rest of them, they'd had him send an owl to Dumbledore saying that his Aunt was still poorly and she needed him to stay and look after the creatures for a while longer. Given that this was the first time in fifty years that he had taken any time away from Hogwarts and the reason given, Dumbledore could hardly refuse him this. Of course, what they were actually doing was helping Hagrid recover from the effects of having the bindings removed, working to give him what protection they could against being tampered with again and beginning his training to become what he was meant to be before Dumbledore interfered with him.

* * *

Dumbledore dropped a new challenge in the students' laps, in the form of their new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart, at dinner the night the students arrived back at Hogwarts. The blonde ponce had almost as jarring a fashion sense as Dumbledore and if anything he had a more obviously overblown sense of his own self importance. Listening to him prattle on about himself made the lucky thirteen who _wouldn't_ be in his classes thank Merlin that they would be spared from having to deal with the self-obsessed fool.

Of course, the fates had apparently decided that no-one was to be be spared the tender mercies of the perfumed popinjay because Dumbledore also announced that Professor Lockhart had kindly offered to lead extra curricular (but mandatory) classes in duelling to help the students deal with the perceived dangers in the castle. Lockhart's dreams of using this, and the presence of the boy-who-lived in the class, to drum up more publicity for himself were dashed by Harry's question when he condescendingly introduced Filius as his assistant for the First years' opening class. "Can you explain why Professor Flitwick, who is a five times All-Europe duelling champion, is _your_ assistant in this duelling class….Sir?"

Lockhart immediately tried to change the subject by acting as though he hadn't heard him and asking who in the group had the most duelling experience, to give a demonstration of what a duel was. Theo Nott put his hand up as he stepped forward with a superior smirk. " _ **Me!**_ And I believe Potter sir."

This suited Lockhart quite well, so over Filius and Harry's objections he called Nott and Harry up onto the platform for the demonstration. He smiled to himself at the thought that with any luck the Merlin be damned brat would be injured, or worse, in this and he would be free of him and his damned impertinence. He couldn't keep a smug smile of satisfaction off of his face as he called out without stopping. "You know the rules? Right then. Start!"

Nott's smug confidence quickly evaporated as Harry blocked or deflected the quickly escalating barrage of spells and curses he threw at him as if they were nothing, and what was worse, he didn't bother retaliating seriously, he just kept hitting him with things like tickling hexes and joke hexes to change the colour of his robes and hair at will. After fifteen minutes of this, Nott was getting tired, and quite pissed off at the growing laughter of those watching. He was desperate to show him, show everyone, that he couldn't make a laughing stock of the Heir to the Noble House of Nott like this.

Harry paused when Nott cried out "Serpensortia Maxima!", as he didn't recognise the spell. The purpose of the spell became clear though when an enormous black snake suddenly appeared in mid-air and slapped down onto the platform in front of him, hissing angrily at the pain of being dropped onto the hard surface like that. Lockhart suddenly realised that he would look rather bad if the boy-who-lived was actually killed as a result of something which could be pinned on him, so he called out. "Don't worry Harry, I'll get rid of it for you!"

When he saw most of the students cringing back out of the corner of his eye at that, Harry suddenly remembered all the stories he'd heard in the Great Hall about how woefully incompetent Lockhart was, so he called out "No! Wait!" as he swung his wand at the snake, but he was too late. The spell Lockhart had cast blew the snake twice Harry's height into the air, where it paused for a brief moment before it came crashing back down to the floor in front of the students crowded around to watch the duel, mostly unharmed but ten times angrier than it had been when it landed in front of Harry.

The snake had landed in front of Justin Finch-Fletchley, a Muggleborn Huffelpuff First year, and he was too terrified to do anything other than stare into the snake's yellow eyes as the head of the enraged snake rose up to his eye level in front of him.

Harry shouted _**'STOP!'**_ at the snake in parseltongue, so its head whipped around to look at him. _'Leave him alone!_ _H_ _e had nothing to_ _with you being here or what happened to you!'_

Unfortunately, the snake's attention was caught by movement and it whipped its head back to find that the other students were scrabbling back, leaving Justin standing there alone, in the puddle that he'd created. Harry shouted to get the snake's attention again, but it was reluctant to turn away from the figure in front of it again.

There was one benefit of everyone else trying to get as far as they could from the snake though. Filius had been blocked from doing anything before because everyone had been taller than him, but now there was nothing between him and the snake, so he cast a vanishing spell at it to make it disappear.

Justin was standing there, shaking in terror and humiliated because he'd lost control of both his bladder and his bowels when he was certain he was about to die, so he took it out on the one in front of him, Prince Bloody Potter. He'd noted everyone starting at Potter in shock and horror when he hissed at the snake so he knew that this was something that you weren't supposed to be able to do, and that just fuelled his terror sparked rage so he started screaming at him.

"What were you playing at you bastard? Why did you sick that fucking snake on me Potter? What did I ever do to you?" He cut Harry off when he tried to explain.

"I might not have your power in this world, but I'll get you for this Potter!" And then he hobbled out awkwardly out of the room.

* * *

Nott had a triumphant grin on his face, smugly satisfied with how he had defeated Potter so publicly, until Professor Flitwick called out to him in a voice that he hardly recognised due to the chill anger that shone through it. "Come with me Mister Nott!"

His tone was rather more pleasant when he called out. "Could you come as well please Duke Potter?" to Harry.

When two of the Aurors in the room fell in behind him as they left, Nott realised that this might not be going the way he wanted it to, after all.

With Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Flitwick, Slughorn and Lockhart (in his mind at least he was too important to not be included), the two Aurors from the room, Madam Bones, the Head Auror, Nott and his father and Harry, Angela and Sirius in the Headmaster's office, it was a little crowded.

Dumbledore was watching the Potter brat while they were waiting for Nott Senior to arrive. He seemed to be quite enamoured with Fawkes, but the surprising thing was his familiar seemed to be reciprocating this interest, which he'd never seen him do before. He decided that being seen to be befriending the boy would be a good thing, and staking out his territory wouldn't be a bad thing either.

"Ah yes Harry, fascinating creatures, phoenixes. They can carry immensely heavy loads, their tears have healing powers, and they make highly faithful pets."

Dumbledore may have missed or ignored the offended squawk and baleful glare that Fawkes gave him at being called a _pet_ , but Harry didn't, and his consoling Fawkes over that slight only increased the connection between them. Harry's metamorphmagus talent and the phoenix opening up to him was allowing him to 'read' Fawkes as he was stroking her, and they shared amused aggravation over the fact that after decades of supposedly being Dumbledore's familiar, the old fool still thought of Fawkes as male, something he would have realised was incorrect if he'd ever had any real connection with her, or bothered doing any research into phoenixes, as phoenixes were all _female_.

When Nott's father had arrived, they cast the 'prior incantum' spell on Theo Nott's wand that they'd already cast on Harry's, and then the fun started. Nott Senior had always gone along with everyone who laughed about the fact that a mere woman was too soft to lead the DMLE (something he and his kind were quite happy about), but this belief was quite shaken that day.

Amelia went to town, demanding to know who had taught his son all of these illegal spells and curses. Most of these were only taught in Aurors' training so that they knew what they could be coming up against, so she wanted to know who'd taught them to a First year student, almost certainly before he'd even started at Hogwarts. When Nott and his son claimed that they had no recollection of where he'd learned them and Nott refused to allow his son to be questioned under Veritaserum, Amelia and the Head Auror went off and argued quietly for about ten minutes before coming back.

The two of them bickered over a few of the numbers they were writing on the list of spells and curses cast by Nott's wand, but they reached agreement in the end and began adding them up. It took them a while, especially after Harry pointed out a few errors they'd made, but in the end they all agreed on the figure and Amelia looked up at the impatient Nott and his son (most in the room were oblivious to the fact that someone had by then cast 'petrificus totalus', 'silencio' and notice-me-not spells on Dumbledore non-verbally and wandlessly, so he had, for all intents and purposes, disappeared and been forgotten).

"Theodore Nott, because you and your father refuse to divulge where you have learned these dangerous and illegal spells and curses and your father refuses to allow us to question you under Veritaserum, it is not permissible to allow you to remain where you can use them against children or other innocents. Therefore, as we have reached the limit of investigation and questioning allowed to us, you have been charged as an adult for each of the illegal spells and curses that you have cast today. You are hereby sentenced to fifty eight years in Azkaban. Aurors, take him away."

Nott senior erupted, screaming that she couldn't do that and when she made it clear that she could and would do that, demanded that his son get a trial before the Wizengamot, as was his right as the heir to a Noble House. If he hadn't been so enraged, he might have been suspicious about how easily she gave in on that point, but it evaded him. Thinking that he'd won, he sneered at Amelia as he snapped. "We will see you in front of the Wizengamot Bones! Come along Theodore!" but Amelia had one more blow to deal to the Nott famiy.

"No! Given the dangerous and illegal spells and curses your son knows and has proven all too willing to publicly use against other children, your son is a danger to the children and people of Magical Britain. He will remain in the DMLE's custody until his trial."

Nott went for his wand at that, but froze before he touched it, because six wands had appeared at the moment he moved, and they were all pointed straight at _him_. Snarling. "You will rue the day you crossed me Bones!" he flooed out of the office.

* * *

Amelia waved for the Aurors to take the boy away again, then went on to matter of a Hogwarts professor forcing a student who was the Head and Heir of _the_ two Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses into a dangerous duel against his will. At that point she realised that she hadn't seen or heard Dumbledore since she'd tuned out his whining platitudes that this had been nothing more than a boy playing up, and his demanding that it be handled internally by the head of his house at Hogwarts, Professor Slughorn. She was starting to ask where Dumbledore had gone to when a quiet voice said. "Oh, I'm sorry Madam Bones." before Harry cancelled the spells.

Dumbledore started screaming and demanding that the boy be arrested, but faltered when Amelia calmly asked "On what grounds?"

"For... For… For attacking the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot!"

She just looked at him. "How so? Since when has a body bind that does not injure or place the recipient at risk been an assault? And for that matter, you are not here as the Chief Warlock Mister Dumbledore, you are here as the Headmaster of Hogwarts, perhaps you have too many roles if you cannot remember how to separate them. Also, you should consider the fact that Duke Potter quite possibly saved you from having to answer for the fact that you were persisting in interfering in a DMLE matter after you had been repeatedly warned to desist."

Dumbledore's ego couldn't let him let go of the fact that this _boy_ had bound and silenced _him_ , the greatest wizard of the age, and everyone had just forgotten about him as soon as the notice-me-not spell had been cast! "He… He had no right to do that to me! If you will not arrest him, I will expel him and strip his magic from him!"

"Interesting, you were the one who had the laws passed to force him to come to Hogwarts once he turned eleven, and start in First year even though he is well beyond that, but now that he has done something that you don't like, something far less serious than the actions of another student that you were just insisting should be handled internally by the head of his school house, you are threatening to expel him?" She glanced at Harry before locking her gaze on Dumbledore again. "You may be able to insist on expelling Duke Potter Headmaster, but as the Chief Warlock you should be well aware that attempting to unlawfully take the magic of the Head and Heir of two Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses over such a minor matter out of spite would _not_ go at all well for you. Also, if you _do_ attempt to expel him, in _my_ other role as a member of the Hogwarts Board, I will block it and have you removed as being unfit to serve as Hogwarts' Headmaster."

She turned to look at Lockhart. "Just as your _professor_ should have known the penalties for forcing the Head and Heir of two Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses into a dangerous duel with the Heir of a lesser Noble House who had no right to challenge someone so far above his station."

She then turned to Minerva. "Deputy Headmistress McGonagall, I am afraid that I lack confidence in the Headmaster's impartiality in this matter, can I rely on you to take the matter of Professor Lockhart forcing Duke Potter into this duel over his and Professor Flitwick's objections to the Hogwarts Board? And also the unreasonable threat to expel Duke Potter and strip him of his magic on a minor matter?"

Minerva inclined her head to Amelia. "Most certainly, Madam Bones."

"Thank you Professor McGonagall, I will provide you with copies of everything we have here to share with the Board members."

With that, they packed up and departed, leaving a rather angry, frustrated and worried Albus Dumbledore alone in his office.

* * *

An hour later, the family was congregated in the Corvus Tower common room to discuss how they would handle this. The first step was simple enough, the details of all the illegal curses used inside of Hogwarts against another student who happened to be the Head of one Most Noble and Most Ancient House and Heir to another by the First year son of a supposedly ex-Death Eater at a Hogwarts Professor's instigation were sent to all possible Hogwarts Board members, with the exception of Dumbledore and Voldemort's supporters.

Details of Dumbledore's attempts to force the DMLE to let the matter go with no more than a talking to by his head of house at the school and his threat to expel the Head and Heir of two Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses from Hogwarts and strip him of his magic because the boy had prevented him from interfering in a DMLE criminal matter were also sent out with them.

The fact that most of the possible Board members were also senior Wizengamot members and heads of Noble and Ancient or Noble Houses, nearly all of whom had children, nieces, nephews or grandchildren at Hogwarts was just a happy coincidence, of course.

Not being part of the leadership of the Noble Houses and not having bothered to make any real effort to understand them, Dumbledore had never really grasped how the Noble Houses held the Most Ancient Houses to be all but sacrosanct, and the Ancient Houses as well to a lesser degree. This had been one of the core tenants of Magical Britain for over eight centuries, but like most things held sacred, it was kept secret from outsiders. Even the lesser Noble Houses had a tenuous grasp on the core tenants of Noble House rules, and that was why sending the details of what people from two insignificant minor houses and a lessor Noble House had done to endanger what was the closest thing to royalty in Magical Britain would be enough to almost ensure how the case would go.

* * *

Of course, the fact that Harry had in fact _saved_ that idiot Justin from the snake was ignored in the school, because the favourite subject in the castle was that as a parselmouth, Potter _must_ be the Heir of Slytherin. The idiot and his friends were certain that Harry was the one who was to blame for the snake (even though it was Nott who had conjured it and Lockhart who had blasted it onto the floor in an angry state) and therefore kept trying to find ways to get back at him. When Suzie was hurt on one occasion because she was too close to Harry, Harry climbed up onto the table at dinner and cast a Sonorus charm.

"That's it! As anyone who was there that day can tell you, it was Nott who created the snake and Lockhart who caused it to land at the feet of that idiot who ended up standing in his own piss and shit! _My_ mistake was to stop the snake from killing the idiot! Be assured, I _will_ find out who hurt my cousin and deal with them! And if any more of my friends and family are hurt, you'll have more to worry about than Slytherin's monster, I can assure you of _that!_ "

He went to cancel the Sonorus but stopped to add something with an evil smile. "And a reminder for whoever it was who hurt my cousin, she is the ward of her Aunt who loves her, the Director of the DMLE, so you have more to worry about than _me!_ "

As he sat down, there was a lot of frightened murmuring coming from the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables, and Ron Weasley, who had been looking pleased with himself before Harry spoke, was now looking terrified. When his brothers caught Ron's expression, all three of them descended on him and dragged him out of the Great Hall.

Later that night, the parents of seven Gryffindor and Hufflepuff students were meeting with Professors McGonagall, Sprout and Flitwick, and the Director of the DMLE. The only reason that Ron Weasley wasn't tossed out on his ear was that he'd actually had an extremely minor role in the incident, he'd only blown it up in his head to make himself feel more important. The disciplinary actions were kept minor, the most severe being a prefect losing his badge and status, because Amelia allowed herself to be 'bought off' with oaths from the five who held Wizengamot seats (and a seat on the Hogwarts Board) to support the sentence of Theodore Nott when it came up at the session. Most of them would also be disciplining their children for lying about what happened after Professor Flitwick had walked them through what had actually happened in that duelling class, because what they heard from him was very different from what their children had told them.

* * *

When the Hogwarts Board meeting was held, the board was made up of two Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses, and ten Noble and Ancient Houses. The only supporter Dumbledore had on the Board was Earl Macmillan (who'd already given his oath to support Amelia) and Voldemort only had Earl Rosier, so needless to say, neither of them managed to sway the Board in their favour. The family had six seats on the Board (Potter, Black, Longbottom, Bones, Flamel and McGonagall), and so had no trouble directing the meeting, especially with Macmillan in their pocket.

They used the pretence of understanding that Lockhart may not have been properly instructed to assign most of the blame to Dumbledore. This, and the threat to expel Harry out of spite, resulted in Dumbledore's activities being more heavily supervised and controlled by Angela and Minerva, and Lockhart being told that one more mistake would result in serious penalties.

They also used this to push through a ruling that Lockhart must buy back every one of the sets of his own seven books that he had assigned as texts for every Defence Against the Dark Arts class from the students, and teach the rest of the year according to the approved curriculum, from the approved texts. Lockhart blustered and threatened to resign at that, but withdrew the threat when they readily agreed, _after_ he had bought back and paid for all his own books he'd set as texts.

Both Dumbledore and Lockhart left the Board Meeting with their tails between their legs and needless to say, the extra-curricular duelling classes had been cancelled in favour of giving the students the training they were supposed to be getting in their regular classes. There were questions from the other Board members when Angela suggested that they keep the information supplied for the next Wizengamot session, and they weren't too impressed when Angela would only answer that a related matter would be on the agenda.

When the Wizengamot session came up, Amelia used Dumbledore's involvement to force him to recuse himself and have Tiberius Haverstock preside over the session. As Dumbledore no longer held the proxies for the Flamel votes or the Flamel seat, he was relegated to the viewing gallery as a spectator for the session. Dumbledore and Voldemort's followers who qualified to sit on the Wizengamot had all been made to attend, but they had little chance of changing the decision with the groundswell of outrage that had been generated. Most of the Heads of Noble and Ancient Houses and many Noble Houses had already been appraised of the illegal curses that were known and being openly used by the twelve year old son of a supposedly ex-Death Eater at Hogwarts around the children of their Houses, and the fact that his father refused to allow him to be questioned under Veritaserum about where he learned them raised serious questions about the contention that he was no longer involved in He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's activities.

What it came down to was that they had proof that a twelve year old student had used these illegal curses at Hogwarts against a younger student and around many other younger students, he would not say where he learned them and the fact that his father refused to allow him to be questioned under Veritaserum made the whole family questionable, so the Wizengamot supported sending a twelve year old to Azkaban for fifty eight years.

The next day, the head Auror on the protection detail at Hogwarts announced at breakfast that Theodore Nott had been sent to Azkaban for fifty eight years for the knowledge and use of illegal spells and curses against another student. He went on to say that any other students proven to be using illegal curses could expect a similar fate. No-one was surprised when he was looking at the Slytherin table when he said that, but he made a point of looking at the other tables as he repeated that _any_ students caught using illegal spells or curses would be charged.

* * *

The comments and accusations about Harry being the Heir of Slytherin reduced for a while after that, but they redoubled when the next student found petrified was Justin Finch-Fletchley, who was found along with Sir Nicholas drifting about in a totally unresponsive state. They stepped up their research into what the monster might be, but they still weren't finding any references to serpents that petrified their victims.

It was just before this that Hagrid returned to Hogwarts, and he caused a stir because he'd tidied himself up quite a bit, with his hair tied back and beard neatly trimmed. They'd struggled to come up with a story that they thought people would swallow, and most were surprised that it was Luna who came up with the most workable story. She'd remembered when her father had been trying to set up the Quibbler as a business, as he'd had to totally change his appearance and speech to make the deals that he needed to get the business started. So what they came up with was that Hagrid had had to deal with his Great Aunt's customers, so the family had made him tidy himself up and speak like people expected in business dealings. Minerva made a big thing of it in the Great Hall the day he returned.

"Well I think it's marvellous Mister Hagrid, and now that you've proven that you can present yourself this way, I for one will be expecting you to maintain this level of speech and presentation!" She looked him in the eye and asked. "You're not going to disappoint me, are you Hagrid?"

Hagrid smiled and bowed to her. "I'd never want to disappoint you Professor McGonagall, I promise to do my best."

She smiled more brightly than most of the students had ever seen her do before and patted him on the arm. "I know I can rely on you when you make a promise Hagrid!"

Dumbledore looked suspicious of this new Hagrid, but the story was conceivable, and he couldn't do much while he was under the eyes and thumbs of Angela and Minerva, especially with a force of Aurors in the castle, so he let the matter go until he was free to investigate.

* * *

Even though identifying and locating Slytherin's monster was something that they were worried about, the students in the group had quite a lot of study to do, because eight of them were compressing First, Second and Third years into one year. Arrangements had been made with the Governor of the Wizarding Examinations Authority for her people to quietly come in and give the eight First years their First Year end of year exams after the Third Years joined them and they changed to private tutors for most subjects in November. They came back again in early February to give them their Second year end of year exams. From then on, all thirteen students were working on their Third year subjects.

On top of that, they were also completing their non-magical education, and that was rather difficult for the Purebloods other than Nev, Suzie and Draco, who'd been working on it since they were five with Harry.

In March, another student was petrified, a Fifth Year Ravenclaw prefect by the name of Penelope Clearwater. Penelope was a half-blood, and so didn't quite match the pattern of those being attacked, but she was also the closest victim to the family so far, as she was Percy's girlfriend and she had been helping Hermione and Luna research the monster. Another thing different with Penny was that she had a small make-up mirror in her hand when she was found, and it looked as though she had been using it to look around the corner.

They wished that they could just revive her and ask her what she was looking for, but unfortunately, Dumbledore's position on not doing anything to revive Colin Creevy hadn't entirely been him being bigoted. The goblins had checked elsewhere in the world, but it was recorded that it was only the northern variant of the mandrakes which had the properties needed for the potion to revive the petrification victims. They did bring in some southern mandrakes and tried to use them for the potion in hope that that had just been dogma, but the potion didn't do any good (they made sure that Filch didn't find out that they had been testing it on Mrs Norris), so they were still waiting on the first of the northern mandrakes to mature enough to get the potion made and revive the victims.

Hermione said that Penny had been helping her and Luna research the monster, and they'd discussed the Medusa connection, so she thought that that may have been why she was using the mirror, but if so, why did she still get petrified?

This made Hermione leap to her feet and begin to pace in frustration, talking out loud as she pondered this. "Penny was obviously using the mirror to avoid being petrified like in the legends, so why was she… Of course, the puddle, Colin's camera, no, wait, that doesn't explain, or does it?…."

She looked up to see everyone watching her. "I think we've been looking at this wrong, I don't think we're looking for a creature that petrifies with a look, I think we're looking for something that _kills_ with a look. It's the mirror Penny was looking in. We were talking about Medusa being wrong because she wasn't actually a serpent, but I believe that's why Penny was using the mirror to look around the corner, to avoid being petrified. The fact that she was petrified _while_ using a mirror to look tells us that it's not something that has the same properties as Medusa, because that should have protected her from being petrified. That was what made me realise that most of the others were effectively using mirrors _too_. Missus Norris could have seen it in the reflection in the puddle where she was found, and Colin was looking at the image in a mirror in his camera. I don't see how that applies to Justin and Sir Nicholas though?…."

Harry was nodding musingly as she talked, but he had a realisation at that. "Gryffindor!..."

Everyone was looking at him as if he were mad, so he hastily explained. "Sir Nicholas was Gryffindor, probably the embodiment of a proper Gryffindor to be the house ghost, so I'm betting that when whatever this is appeared, Sir Nicholas got in front of Justin and sacrificed himself to protect him. As Sir Nicholas is a ghost, Justin would have still seen through him, but maybe it diluted the effect like seeing it in a mirror would have?"

The others were nodding at his reasoning, but Hermione asked. "But what about Sir Nicholas?"

Harry shook his head. "I don't know. If I'm right, he would have gotten the full effect, but he's a ghost so he can't be killed…. can he?"

They all looked distraught at the idea of the chatty and friendly ghost being….gone, but Hermione took them back to the core matter. "Right then! If we're right, we're looking for a serpent that kills with a look and lives a long time, spiders apparently don't like it and for some reason it doesn't like roosters… Damn! I wish we could search for this like you can on a computer! Anyway, does that ring a bell with anyone?"

All eyes turned to Daphne when she said. "Maybe…." but she'd already leapt to her feet and dashed off with Remus at her heels before anyone could ask what she'd remembered.

They were back twenty minutes later and Daphne had a look of triumph as she waved the book in her hands, saying. "I thought so! Listen to this!" as she opened it. "Of all the fearsome beasts and monsters that inhabit our lands, there are none more curious or deadly than the Basilisk, which is also known as the King of Serpents. This serpent can live for many hundreds of years and grow to a great size. It is born from a chicken's egg that has been hatched under a toad. Quite aside from its most potent venom, it is said that none may live who meet its murderous gaze. Spiders will flee from the Basilisk as an indomitable enemy, but the Basilisk only fears the crowing of the rooster, as this is fatal to it."

They looked at each other, nodding, that _must_ be it, it fit all the clues they had!

* * *

When they notified the others, Amelia came to Hogwarts to talk to them about what they'd found, but she looked as though she wanted to murder Dumbledore when she came back from informing him. "That old bastard _knew_! When I told him, he let slip a definite flash of aggravation that someone else had worked it out. He's known this all along and refused to tell anyone, any of the students could have been killed like Myrtle Mumpton was back in nineteen forty and he wouldn't have done a thing!"

Hermione jumped up. "Myrtle!"

They all looked at her, waiting for her to continue. She saw their looks and blushed. "I'm an idiot! We've known that a girl was killed in the castle last time, and even that her name was Myrtle, but I never put it together before! On Halloween, when I was hiding in that haunted toilet in the dungeon because of what that git said to me, Moaning Myrtle, the ghost who haunts the toilet, was talking to me. I think she was just enjoying seeing someone else being as miserable as she was, but that's not the point, how many girls named Myrtle do you think have been killed _inside_ the castle? For that matter, her robes and clothes are right for that period too!"

Harry realised something too. "It was just outside that toilet that the sign showed up!"

Angela nodded. "That would been where the water came from, I remember the drains always kept getting blocked up and overflowing in there, though I'd forgotten about Myrtle."

Harry and the others looked at each other. "I guess we need to go and talk to Myrtle then?"

There was a round of nods and they headed out.

When they arrived in the upper dungeon, they were surprised to find that they weren't the only ones there, Minerva, Filius, Pomona and Lockhart were there with a number of Aurors, looking at a new sign where the original one had been. 'HER SKELETON WILL LIE IN THE CHAMBER FOREVER'.

Minerva was looking worried. "We cannot find the Headmaster for some reason. We're checking the houses now but from this it seems as though one of our students has been taken by the monster. It's not Miss Clearwater, I checked with Poppy as soon as I saw the message and she's still in the infirmary. But how are we to save her if we don't know where she has been taken?"

Lockhart thought he was safe boasting here and sprouted off. "Damned shame that, if I only knew where I'd be there in a flash to rescue her!"

Amelia had had this blowhard as much as any of them. "Well that's a stroke of luck for you then Professor, because we believe that we've found where the access to the Chamber lies, it's in there." She pointed to the door of the toilet behind him.

Lockhart's blathering about 'just getting something' and trying to run off were stopped by Kingsley Shacklebolt clamping a hand onto is shoulder and pushing him into the toilet after the others.

Hogwarts and the elves had repaired all the damage from the troll, but Hermione still shuddered as she remembered that day, and she gratefully leant into Harry when he put his arm around her to comfort her. When she'd pulled herself together, she called out. "Myrtle? Myrtle, are you here?"

The ghost popped out of the end stall and demanded to know what those _boys_ were doing in the girls' toilet, though she seemed quite enamoured with Harry. "I don't mind you being here though Harry, you were so brave, going up against that great big troll, even if you changed to do it."

Harry blushed. "Um, thanks. Myrtle, I know that this might be upsetting, but can you tell us how you died? I wish I didn't have to ask, but it's really quite important."

This was the most interest anyone had shown in Myrtle in fifty years, so she was happy to tell the story. "It happened right in here, I died in this very stall. I remember it so well, I was hiding because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses." She looked at Hermione to say. "Like you were that day." before continuing. "I had the door locked, and I was crying when I heard somebody come in and start speaking. They were saying something funny, it sounded like some funny foreign language. Anyway, I was mad because it was a boy's voice, so I unlocked the door to tell him to go away and use the _boys_ ' toilet, and then…" Myrtle finished quietly. "I died."

Harry asked gently. "How did you die Myrtle?"

She shook her head as she responded quietly. "I have no idea, I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away . . . ." She looked far away as she remembered. "But I came back again, I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby you see. Oh, was she sorry she'd ever laughed at me because of my glasses."

"Where exactly did you see those eyes Myrtle?"

"Somewhere over there," said Myrtle, pointing vaguely toward the sinks at the other end of the toilet.

Harry and the others hurried over, except for Lockhart who was standing back with a look of utter terror on his face.

The sinks looked ordinary enough, but they examined every inch of them, inside and out, including the pipes below. And then Harry saw that, scratched into the side of one of the copper taps on the very end sink, was the figure of a snake.

Myrtle offered. "Oh, that tap's never worked Harry." brightly as he tried to turn it.

"Harry," said Hermione. "Try saying something. Say something in Parseltongue."

Drawing on how he'd talked to the Gringotts dragons, he said. _'Open up._ '

When he hissed at it in parseltongue, the marked tap glowed and began to turn. Then the sink and a large patch of the wall behind it began to move, sinking down out of sight with a grating sound to expose a large hole. This hole was almost high enough to stand up in and they could see a pipe or tunnel leading down from it, disappearing into the darkness.

The others all crowded forward to look down the hole, bringing Lockhart with them, but he suddenly pulled out his wand, shouting. "You can't make me go down there!"

One of the Auros cried out. "Expelliarmus!" to disarm him but Lockhart was knocked back into the hole. Harry had to laugh as he watched Lockhart disappearing down the pipe, screaming all the way.

* * *

They weren't exactly surprised when Harry gave them apologetic look and then followed Lockhart down the pipe, because there was a girl down where who someone had sentenced to death, probably just because her blood wasn't pure enough for them. Everyone else stepped forward as well, but Angela shook her head, talking quickly.

"No, we can't all go, we need people here to stop it if it gets past us. Sirius and I are going after our son. Sev, you're a good healer as well, we might need that." Sirius and Severus nodded and jumped down the pipe. "We might need our two resident geniuses so they can come, and Nev and the twins are the strongest of the others so they can come too. Rackclaw, Fangbar, Ragnar, you too. Krogar, we need you to stay here with the others." The ones she'd named to go had jumped into the hole in turn as she looked at the others. "Minerva, I think you three need to stay here to help protect the rest of the students in case it gets past us." Minerva nodded quickly.

Looking at Amelia, she asked "Who do you want to send with us Madam Bones?" Amelia quickly considered who'd already gone and looked at Kingsley Shacklebolt. "Kingsley, pick someone strong to go with you!" Kingsley nodded and called out "Pike!" before jumping down the pipe himself. Angela snorted and turned back to Minerva, saying. "It would help if you could think of a way for us to get back up out of there, too Minerva." just before she jumped down the pipe behind Pike.

The ones left looked at each other, and then Amelia started barking orders to put everyone in the best positions to deal with the monster if it came up the pipe. After thinking about Angela's last request for a while, Minerva sent her patronus off to Madam Hooch with a message.

What only those in the front had seen was that Harry had transformed into his mngwa form as he jumped into the pipe, and he was running down the pipe. One thing was clear, it was a long way down the pipe, because he could still hear Lockhart screaming in fear, and he was still moving because Harry wasn't catching up to him that quickly. As he lost the light, he relied on the mngwa's other senses, and Lockhart's screams, to know what was going on.

When Lockheart's screams suddenly rose in pitch and stopped, Harry knew that he'd fainted in fright, and the reason for that was confirmed when he heard a 'thump' seconds later as Lockhart obviously reached the bottom and stopped. As he was approaching the point where Lockhart had fainted, Harry dug his claws in to slow himself down and cast a lumos. He saw what had made Lockhart faint just before he reached it, as the pipe suddenly levelled off before ending in the side of a larger tunnel. As he exited the pipe, he sprang up to land on all four feet against the far wall before bounding back to the tunnel floor.

He quickly cancelled the lumos and changed back to his human form before re-igniting it, but he needn't have worried as Lockhart was still out cold. He knew from what he'd been hearing that Sirius and Severus weren't too far behind him, so he dragged Lockhart out of the way, cast cushioning charms on the wall that they'd be hitting when they arrived, and cast a ball of light at the bend in the tunnel so that they'd see it coming up.

They called out and aligned themselves feet first as they reached the bend so that they rebounded and scrambled to their feet when they fit the wall, getting out of the way of the pipe opening because the twins weren't far behind either. The twins had heard what they'd called out, so they did the same when they reached the bend. Neville was next, then Hermione and Luna. Harry pulled Hermione and Luna off to the side away from Lockhart and where the basilisk had obviously been coming from, cleaning the muck that they'd been sliding through from their robes as he did so. He did the same for Angela when she appeared last, and she gave him a hug before telling him that they would be having words about the way he'd jumped down the hole like that!

Now that they were all down, Sirius snorted. "Well that was fun!"

Angela shook her head at him with an exasperated smile before she asked. "Does anyone have any idea how far we've come or where we are?"

Hermione piped up. "I'd say we've come at least a mile!"

Rackbar nodded his agreement. "From the direction and angle of our descent, we must be under the lake here."

They just nodded at that, because no-one was going to question a goblin on navigating underground.

The tunnel they were in was more than twice the size of the pipe they just came out of but the floor was just as wet and slimy. Casting light in either direction, they could all see where the basilisk had come from, as the side where Harry was standing with Hermione, Luna and Angela didn't look as though it had been disturbed in centuries, while the dirt and debris on the floor on the other side had been pushed off to the sides of the tunnel and had obviously been disturbed recently.

A quick look around confirmed everyone's agreement, but unfortunately Pike had revived Lockhart, as most of them would have preferred to leave him there. They were hopeful as Lockhart was refusing to go with them while they were forming up the group to head off down the tunnel, but then he realised that he'd be there by himself if he didn't and suddenly changed his mind.

They were all afraid, only a fool wouldn't be when they were going after a thousand year old monster that could kill you many ways, the easiest by looking at you, but there was a girl down here and they meant to save her.

Kingsley, Pike and Sirius were up front as first line of defence. The goblins were behind them with Harry, Neville and the twins forming the third row and the girls right behind Harry. Lockhart was hiding behind them and Angela and Severus were forming the rear guard.

As they headed down the tunnel, they found pieces of old sheep, cattle and bigger skeletons pushed to the sides, which didn't help their sense of security at all because they had to look at each to see whether it looked like a young girl's, or recent. Luckily none of the skeletons they saw appeared newer than the last time the chamber had been opened, or human, but a few of them might have been goblin bones.

They were held up a few times because they had to check out the tunnels than were coming in from the same side as the pipe, to make sure that the basilisk wasn't up there and it wouldn't be coming out of any of them to attack them from behind, but they were all empty and had collapsed centuries ago by the look of them. A couple of them were as slimy as the pipe from Hogwarts, and were contributing to the inch or two of sloppy mud and slime that covered the floor of the main tunnel.

Nearly two miles down the tunnel they had a bit of a panic when they saw something large in front of them at the edge of the light. After checking with each other to coordinate, Kingsley, Pike and Sirius cast starburst charms down the tunnel and rushed forward with the goblins (and the boys) to try and attack it while it was still blinded by the brilliant light of the starburst charms.

What they found was actually a shed skin poking out of another side tunnel, but their relief was short lived, as they all knew full well that a snake sheds its skin when it outgrows it, and this skin was well over twenty feet long and at least two feet across. Harry and Fred were trying to get the others moving, because Hermione, Luna, George and the goblins were debating how old the skin was and how much the basilisk might have grown and the others were looking at it, unfortunately no-one was paying any attention to Lockhart.

Seeing the snake skin must have totally pushed Lockhart over the edge and he apparently decided that if he went back alone with a tragic story about how everyone else perishing in a battle with the snake he could come out of this as a hero (forgetting that he'd gotten there by being a coward). Pike automatically grabbed for him when Lockhart slumped as if he'd fainted again, but he moved faster than any of them thought he could to snatch Pike's wand away from him and point it at the group beside the shed skin as he shouted. "Bombarda Maxima!"

Severus managed to get off a bludgeoning hex at him before the spell left the wand, knocking Lockhart over backwards so that the wand was pointing at the ceiling of the tunnel beyond the side tunnel when the spell was released, blasting the ceiling open. Angela desperately shot a banishing spell at Harry and Fred, throwing them back along the tunnel as the tunnel collapsed.

As soon as the rocks and dirt had stopped crashing down they were frantically calling for Harry and Fred but they couldn't hear anything from them, so a terrified Angela sent a patronus message to Harry. They had an urgent couple of minutes before Harry's patronus came back to say that they were both a little banged up but OK, and that only the edge of the collapse had caught them.

The Goblins were trying to get through the downfall, but whenever they started tunnelling through it, the hole would fill back in as soon as they tried to move forward. Rackclaw and the others were warriors, not engineers, so they weren't knowledgeable or practised in the type of persistent shoring spells that they'd need to tunnel through something like this.

Angela kept telling the boys to wait there and they'd be with them as soon as they could, but Harry sent his patronus back to say that they didn't know how long the girl had, so they were going forward to try and save her, hopefully they could join them when they got through. Angela tried to stop him but had to reluctantly agree that that was the best plan.

Harry's last message was. "See you soon!"

* * *

Harry and Fred couldn't believe how close they had been to the end, because they came to a set of massive doors less than half a mile past the downfall. The doors had two interlocked snakes carved into them, and after he and Fred looked at each other, Harry just said ' _Open'_ in parseltongue.

Fred cringed at the lifelike movements as the snakes slithered out of the way and muttered. "Oh no, that's not creepy at all!" Harry had to nod, because it creeped him out almost as much as it had Fred, but that didn't stop him moving forward as the doors slowly opened.

The long, narrow chamber they stepped through into was dimly lit by magic. As he looked around the chamber, Fred muttered. "How are we supposed to see that fucking snake in here?" Harry didn't bother answering him, because he was thinking the same thing. Everywhere you looked were carved snakes, shit, the columns they were walking between _were_ snakes, and the flickering green light from the torches made them look as though they were moving.

They were freaking out about the apparently moving snakes and trying to find the girl that they had come for, but they didn't see her until they got to the last of the columns so that there was only an open area between them and the massive bust of Salazar Slytherin that reached up to the ceiling of the chamber about thirty feet above them. There was a figure in black robes near the base of the bust and they ran to her.

Fred swore when he saw who it was. "If I'd known it was one of _them_ I wouldn't have come!" It was the first time he'd ever had Harry's anger directed at _him_. "Shut it! Do you think she _chose_ to be here! She's just as much a victim as any other girl would be! Now help me with her or fuck off!"

That made Fred drop to his knees on the other side of the girl. "Sorry Harry, it's just this place, it's fucking freaking me out! You know I didn't mean that, of course I'm helping you!"

Harry was still angry so he didn't answer, he just shook the girl, trying to wake her up. "Millicent, Millie! Come on, wake up! We have to get you out of here!"

When a voice came from behind Harry saying. "You can't wake her." they were both on their feet with their wands out in a flash.

There was a tall, black haired boy in school robes leaning up against the base of the bust of Slytherin. He didn't look quite right, or quite all there, but Harry initially put it down to the strange lighting in the Chamber.

Harry muttered at Fred to keep trying to wake Millie and asked. "Who are you?"

The boy bowed slightly. "I'm Tom, Tom Riddle." He smirked when he saw that Harry knew his name.

"What do you mean, we can't wake her?"

"She's almost gone, it will all be over soon."

Harry was trying to work out how Riddle could look the same as he had in the pictures from over fifty years ago. "Are you a ghost?"

Riddle laughed. "A ghost? No, a memory, one that's been stored in my diary for over fifty years."

He pointed to the diary that was laying on the marble floor beside Millicent Bulstrode.

Harry glanced down at it. "Diary? Look, this will have to wait, we don't have time to talk, there's a basilisk in here somewhere and we need to get Millicent out of here."

"No! We'll talk now! The basilisk won't come until its called and the girl's staying."

Fred spat out. "We'll see about that!" and shot a stunner at Riddle, but it passed straight through him with no effect. That made Fred go pale as he blurted out. "Shite!"

Riddle laughed. "See, you can't do anything to me!"

Harry narrowed his eyes at him. "I thought you said you weren't a ghost?"

"I'm not, a part of me was locked in the diary until that stupid Half-Blood awoke me by writing in it. Oh how her father will pay for defiling himself by marrying and breeding with a Muggleborn just to fix his family's failing fortunes!"

Harry tried to distract him in hope that Fred could get the girl away. "Pot calling the kettle black, isn't it Tom? I understand that your father wasn't even a Muggleborn, he was just a plain old Muggle who your mother had to trap with a love potion. Pity Mummy forgot to keep up those love potions when she was pregnant with you, wasn't it Tom?"

Riddle was furious. "You dare to speak to me like that, _**Harry Potter**_? Your mother was nothing but Muggleborn filth, you will pay for your temerity!"

"Again, Mum was a Muggleborn _**Witch**_ , and so was one up on your potioned Muggle Daddy, but you're going to pay for saying that about Mum. By the way, Hagrid says Hi and he'll be cleared when we get this mess cleared up."

Just then, Riddle noticed Fred trying to get Millicent away and shouted out. "Stop! She's not going anywhere until she's been drained!"

Harry stepped forward, signalling Fred to keep going. "What do you mean, drained?"

Riddle laughed. "Why do you think she's so near death? Ever since she started writing in the diary, she'd been putting her essence, her magic into it, into _me_. She awoke me enough to put some of myself into her and use her to start the task of cleansing Hogwarts, but I grew impatient with acting through an inferior girl's body so I brought her down here to finish the harvesting. Soon I will have all of it and I will be able to leave here and take my rightful place!"

"But before I finish with you, Harry Potter, I must know how you defeated the greatest wizard of the age? Of all time? That is why I brought you here Harry Potter."

Harry looked at him. "Greatest wizard of all time? What are you talking about? The only one I've put down was Voldemort, well I did get rid of him twice. Why would you care about Voldemort? He was way after your time."

"Lord Voldemort is my past, present and furture!"

Riddle raised Millicent's wand and wrote 'TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE' in the air, then waved the wand over it so the letters rearranged themselves into 'I AM LORD VOLDEMORT'.

"You see? I was already using my true name at Hogwarts with my followers. Why would I keep the name of my filthy Muggle father when the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself runs through my veins? No, I crafted a suitable name for myself when I became the greatest wizard in the world!"

Harry snorted. "Well for a start you screwed up with the name, where are the H, the other A or the S? But more importantly, the greatest wizard in the world? Don't make me laugh! I beat you when I was fifteen months old, and again ten years later. And now? What can you do? Nothing!"

Riddle went to answer him, but he noticed that Fred had almost reached the first of the columns with Millicent, so he turned with a roar of rage and called out in parseltongue. _'_ _Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four.'_

Harry heard a grating sound and saw the bottom half of the mouth and chin of Slytherin's bust sliding down, to reveal a large hole like the one up above in the girls' toilet. Harry's thought of 'Oh shit, this can't be good!' was met two ways, the first by Fawkes suddenly flaming into existence in the chamber and dropping the sorting hat into his hands as she swooped over him, and the second by the green shape of the basilisk beginning to emerge from the mouth of the bust of Slytherin.

The beast that slid out onto the chamber floor was at least three times the size of that cast off skin that they had found in the tunnel. The basilisk was headed for the one who had summoned it until it, and Harry, heard Riddle hiss. ' _Kill them!'_ and Riddle pointed at Harry _.  
_

As the basilisk's head whipped around to locate its first target, Harry screwed his eyes shut and screamed "Hide, Fred!" As he started running. He could hear Riddle laughing behind him.


	6. Monsters

**I was** **probably** **overdue** **for** **the same type of trials and tribulations that everyone else seems to have, but** **I** **wasn't expecting it when** **my main computer had a total meltdown. I** **freaked out when it wasn't** **just the** **fried** **power supply and put** **ting** **a new one in** **didn't help. Needless to say, I was quite relieved when I found that a connector had been knocked loose when I was replacing the power supply. ;^)**

 **You know how** _every_ _body_ **knows that you should keep backups of any important files? Yeah, the next chapters for three or four in-progress stories here and half a dozen completed or nearly completed novels that I** **did** **n't** **have** **the** **most recent (or any)** **copies of anywhere else, not to mention all my emails. I'm** _really_ **glad** **that I** **managed to** **resurrect th** **e** **computer.**

 **Writing the last chapter, something occurred to me. According to what was apparently leaked from Pottermore, the Gaunts were descended from one of Salazar Slytherin's sisters, so Tom Riddle wasn't the heir of Salazar Slytherin at all! The Slytherin family, perhaps, but not** ** _Salazar_** **Slytherin.**

 **BTW: I've got a slightly different version of squibs and Muggleborns going here, in that for the most part, two dormant squib lines will have magical children, but they can keep on for many generations without magic if they don't find a partner with latent magic.**

 **NB: There's a rather unpleasant patch towards the end that has been marked if people want to skip it. You can just infer what's what from the other text.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.**

As Harry started running, he heard the Hat say. "Put me on lad, I'll direct you!" and as that was by far the best option he had on offer, he reached up and pulled it on, tugging it down to cover his eyes as it had when he was sorted last September. From then on, he could hear the Hat in his head, and for over ten minutes it seemed to be barking 'left', 'right', 'stop', 'go', 'down', 'back' or 'Run!' at him every five to ten seconds.

Then something changed, because the hissing he was hearing from the basilisk changed, and as a parselmouth he could gauge the emotions he was hearing, even though it wasn't saying anything. First it was pain as the hissing rose to shriek, then rage, and then fear. Riddle either couldn't read the emotions like he could, or he didn't care, because he just kept shouting at the basilisk to get him!

When the basilisk started hissing furiously, the Hat let Harry stop and catch his breath, so something had obviously changed to make it safer. Harry waited until he'd gotten his breath back to ask what was happening (forgetting that talking in your head doesn't require you to get your breath), and when he did the Hat said. "It should be safe to look now."

When he did, he saw that the basilisk was snapping furiously at Fawkes, or at least where it thought she was, because its eyes were ruined, taking away its most dangerous weapon. Fawkes was still attacking its eyes, swooping in to drive her talons into the eyes and ripping great chunks out of them. The danger wasn't over though, because its massive body and tail were whipping about all over place as it thrashed about in pain and rage, but now that it was safe to look (hopefully), Harry could dodge it more easily. He managed to get it across to Fred that it was safe to open his eyes as well, so Fred crept closer to try and help.

Unfortunately, the respite was all too brief because Riddle started shouting at the basilisk on parseltongue. ' _No!_ _Forget_ _the bird!_ _The_ _y are_ _right there_ _, find_ _the_ _m_ _by_ _scent!_ _I command you!_ _Kill_ _them_!"

As the basilisk's head came around at that, searching for him, Harry scrabbled back with an exclamation of _**"Shite!"**_ Fawkes kept attacking it but it seemed compelled to obey Riddle.

Suspicious about that, Harry quickly case an detection spell on it and swore again, because someone had cast a strong compulsion charm over the beast using parseltongue magic, and he didn't need two guesses to know who. That took their best option away because Harry had been hoping that there may be a chance to get through to the basilisk, but that was out now.

That meant that they had to try and fight the monster directly, and as it was over twice the size and bulk of a dragon, Harry didn't give too much for their chances. When he and Fred started hurling cutting and piecing spells at the basilisk, their situation just got worse, because they discovered that basilisk skin is highly resistant to magic and the strongest spells they threw at it just bounced off with no effect, other than angering it. Their attacks also gave the basilisk a better idea of where Harry and Fred were, and its strikes were getting closer and harder to evade.

Harry was terrified, and certain that they were going to die, and Millicent as well. He muttered to the Hat, part in frustration and part in goodbye. "Not to be ungrateful or anything Merlin, but something to help fight this bloody thing with would have been more use than you right now!" At that moment, something hard conked him on the head and he grabbed the Hat off of his head and looked in it. Seeing a sword hilt with a large emerald in the pommel, he grabbed it and pulled the gleaming sword out of the Hat.

Fred's eyes widened in shock at the sight of Harry pulling a bloody great sword out of the Hat and he asked, half jokingly. "Wouldn't be another one of those in there for me would there?" Harry felt something hard forming through the Hat and looked again, to see another sword hilt, with a ruby in the pommel this time. Knowing instinctively that he couldn't take this sword, and he didn't have a free hand anyway, he hissed. "Fred!" and showed him what was in the Hat when he looked at him.

Eyes widening in shock and hope. Fred dashed over to grab the sword hilt and pull the sword from the Hat, only to have to leap away as the basilisk struck again. Hope gleamed in his eye, in both their eyes, because while they were still two boys against a deadly age old monster that was many, many times their size, someone had answered their call for help and they were at least armed against the beast now.

They quickly realised that the swords in their hands, while obviously magical and able to wound the beast, would not automatically kill it. The basilisk recoiled in confusion, pain and anger when they stabbed it with the swords, but it kept coming back at them and its strikes were growing closer.

Harry had the Hat back on his head now, and it was whispering advice to him. As the basilisk appeared in front of him and struck at him with unerring accuracy, the Hat spat out. "The brain! It's the only thing you can reach to kill it!"

This time, as the basilisk struck with its jaws agape and sabre like fangs glistening, Harry twisted, desperately trying to avoid the fangs as he drove the sword in his hand up through the roof of its mouth into its brain. The sword was ripped from his hand as the basilisk reared back, dying, and crashed to the floor of the chamber in its death throes, almost crushing Fred before he leapt out of the way.

Their triumph was fleeting though, because Harry hadn't managed to evade the basilisk's fangs. One fang had pieced his left arm, high up near the shoulder, and everything was rapidly growing black as the venom coursed through his veins. He fell to his knees, muttering. "Fred, get…. Millie out…. Tell everyone that I love them…. Please…."

Fred had tears in his eyes when he knelt before him, dropping the sword to embrace Harry. "I will Harry, I promise! I'll tell them, we love you too!.." At that moment, he fell back in fear as Fawkes struck him, seemingly attacking him, but she ignored him as she landed beside where Harry had fallen when he'd dropped him, crying as she bent over his arm.

Riddle was standing over them, cackling in triumph, taunting the boy who'd apparently pushed him out of existence twice now but he'd now vanquished. He ignored the other one because he knew that as soon as he'd drained the girl's life and magic, he would eliminate him like a gnat. "You're dying Harry Potter. Even Dumbledore's bird knows it. Can't you see him Potter? He's crying."

Harry looked blearily down at Fawkes. Thick, pearly tears were trickling down the feathers on phoenix's face.

"I'm going to enjoy watching you die because of the trouble you've caused me Potter. Take your time, let me savour it, I'm in no hurry."

Harry still felt far away, but strangely the encroaching blackness seemed to be receding now and the agony of the basilisk venom rampaging through his body was fading.

"So here ends the famous Harry Potter." he heard Riddle's distant gloating voice. "Abandoned by nearly all of his friends, defeated by the Dark Lord he so foolishly challenged. You'll be back with your dear Mudblood mother soon, Potter... She may have bought you ten years of borrowed time ... but I defeated you in the end, you must have known it was inevitable . . . ."

Harry only half heard the crap that Riddle was spouting, he seemed to be trying to tell him about his greatness and point out that Harry could have been great too if he hadn't crossed him, as he apparently shared some of the talents of the great Lord Voldemort, but Harry wasn't interested in that, because he realised that things in the Chamber seemed to be coming back into focus. He shook his head and saw Fawkes, still bent over his arm. Fawkes' pearly tears were shining all around the wound in his arm where the basilisk's fang had pierced him, except that there no longer was a wound there?

Riddle suddenly stopped gloating and shouted in fear and desperation. "Stop! Get away from him you ruddy bird!"

He raised Millicent's wand and shot a spell at Fawkes. It hit her, but whatever it was meant to do, it apparently failed, because she merely flew off in a whirl of red and gold feathers.

Riddle looked after her, muttering. "Phoenix tears, of course! How did I forget about their healing powers?….."

He shook his head, and raised the wand at Harry. "But he can't save you Potter, it's time for you to die!"

A flash of red and gold made Riddle duck as Fawkes swooped in, dropping the diary that had been on the floor beside Millicent next to Harry.

Harry and Riddle both stared at the diary laying open on the floor in bemusement, but Harry recovered first and putting his hand over it he shouted _**"Emundo!"**_ , incanting the spell that the goblins had created to destroy the soul fragment that was embedded in the mark on his forehead.

This ripped piercing, soul shattering screams that shook the very chamber from both Riddle and the diary and something black and unwholesome oozed from the diary.

Riddle was writhing in apparent agony on the floor nearby, until he faded away with the screams. All that was left of them when the echoes of the screams faded was the diary with its rapidly dissipating foul residue, and Millicent's wand.

Harry forced himself upright and pulled his wand from its holster, casting a detection spell over the diary. The faintest trace of dark magic remained, but it was no more than you would encounter in day to day activities, nothing like the foul presence that been anchored in it before. Once he'd confirmed that it was clean of that taint, he picked up the diary and slipped it into the pocket of his robes, as they were probably going to need answers from it later.

* * *

Fred helped him to his feet carefully and they limped to the basilisk, because while the phoenix tears may have saved Harry from the basilisk venom and he could feel himself healing, they were both bruised and battered from being struck by the basilisk and thrown into the columns or walls.

When they reached the basilisk, Harry carefully reached between the fangs to grab the sword hilt and wrench it out. He admired the beautiful weapon, but he decided that as it had come from the Hat, it should be returned to the Hat, so he went to feed it back into it when the Hat cried out in his mind. "Stop, wipe the blood off on me before you put the sword back into me lad."

Harry nodded and did as he was told, both alarmed and amused by the exclamations of the Hat as he did so. "Ah, ooh, that feels _so_ good..." When he'd cleaned off and returned the sword that had come to him, Harry handed the Hat to Fred and he did the same. The hat made less comments when Fred wiped the blood off his sword onto it, but when he handed the Hat back to Harry, Harry could feel that there was notably more energy in the Hat, so the basilisk blood must have revitalised it somehow

Fawkes swooped down and perched on one of the basilisk's horns. Harry smiled at her and stroked her head. "Thanks Fawkes, you were brilliant!" Holding up the Hat to her, he added. "And thanks for bringing us the Hat, we would have been done for without its help and those swords!" She took the Hat in her talons and preened, trilling happily at Harry before she rubbed her head against his face and took off.

Harry and Fred both thought that her departure had had an air of purpose, of things needing to be done, and then they suddenly remembered the girl they'd come here to save. Exclaiming. "Millie!", they turned and hurried as well as their battered bodies could to her, stopping only to scoop her wand up from the floor.

Millie was trying to sit up when they reached her, and looked at them in fear as they hurried up to her. "Potter, Weasley? What are you doing here? What am I…." Her eyes widened as she could now remember what had been blocked from her before.

"Oh no! It's all my fault! I opened the chamber, let that snake out and wrote those messages, but I couldn't help it, Tom..." She stopped and looked around in fear. "Where's Tom? I remember him coming out of the diary, but while he was getting stronger, I kept getting weaker and weaker….."

Harry cut her off. "Millie! It's OK! Riddle's dead, for now anyway, the basilisk too."

Millie flinched when Harry put his arms around her, but then she collapsed into them, sobbing into his shoulder. "I couldn't stop him, he was controlling me!"

Harry just kept telling her that it was alright and gently rubbing her back. When she'd calmed down, he gently wiped away her tears and asked if she was going to be OK?

She nodded hesitantly and he hugged her again, noticing that she didn't flinch this time.

Fred helped both of them to their feet and handed Millie her wand. The way she clenched the wand said that it made her feel a little safer with it in her hand.

Harry thought for a moment about how they were going to get out of there and called for Dommy. He had no trouble coming to Harry, so that was the major part of the problem out of the way anyway. He had another thought and sent his patronus with a message to Angela to say that they were OK, and to call for Dommy if they hadn't gotten through the downfall yet.

Dommy popped away when Angela got the message, returning with her seconds later. Harry was immediately swept up into a hug. He only just managed to get the request out to Dommy to bring the rest of them in between Angela crying, satisfying herself that he was OK and ranting at him for not waiting for them.

Dommy had all of the others there by the time she'd wound down a little, but what snapped her out of the state she was in was George's exclamation. "What the fuck is _**that**_?" when he saw the basilisk carcass.

Angie and the girls screamed, and so did half of the guys, when they saw the monster. They may have been mentally prepared for something a little bigger than the skin they found in the tunnel, but they certainly weren't prepared for something over three times that size!

Harry hastened to assure them that it was dead, and Angela quickly confirmed that Fred was OK before she turned to Millie. She didn't miss the flinch as she approached her, or the looks of fear that she was directing at Fred, George, Sirius and Kingsley, something terrible had happened to this girl and it wasn't just being dragged down here by a madman….

She stopped at that and asked. "Where's the Heir of Slytherin?"

Millie explained that she had been possessed by the shade of Tom Riddle when she wrote in the diary and that he had forced her to open the chamber, release the basilisk and write those signs on the wall in the dungeon. She also told them how she had been given the diary by her father and told to use it, Angela could see from the look in her eyes that there was obviously a lot more to it than that, but silently agreed to wait for the explanation.

Sirius was staring at the basilisk carcass and had to ask. "How in Merlin's name did you manage to kill something like _that_ thing Pup?"

"Well we found that attacking a basilisk with magic only pisses it off, but Fawkes brought us the Sorting Hat, and we got the swords we used out of the hat."

When Sirius looked confused at that, Harry pointed up at Fawkes, just as she swooped down to drop the Sorting Hat into Harry's hands again. Harry reached in and drew out the sword he'd used, holding the Hat out to Fred to draw out the other sword.

Sirius was fascinated by the sword Harry drew out of the Hat, but his eyes went wide as he saw the sword that Fred was holding. "That's the Sword of Gryffindor! Godric Gryffindor's sword!

They realised that he was correct when they examined the sword, but they knew that the sword was the rightful property of the Goblin Nation, so Fred fed it back into the Hat until it disappeared, and Harry did the same with the other one. Then Harry held the Hat high, saying "Thanks Fawkes!" as she swooped down to grab the Hat.

She trilled happily as she swept up and flamed out of the chamber when she was clear of them.

* * *

They looked at each other and agreed that it was time to head back to Hogwarts, so they slowly headed out through the doors of the chamber (Harry, Fred and Millie were all a little fragile). The doors began to close as soon as Harry crossed the portal, so they turned and watched as they closed and then the snakes slithered back into place to seal them. The shudders from the others said that they agreed that the lifelike snakes were creepy.

While they wanted to just pop back to the tower and get Harry, Fred and Millie into restorative baths, they agreed that they'd have to come back out the same way they went in, so Dommy popped them all back to the other side of the collapse in the tunnel. Looking at the skin, Harry asked Dommy if he could move it into the chamber and Dommy nodded, saying that he'd get other Potter elves here to help him.

With that, they levitated the bodies of Lockhart and Pike, who had both been killed when the ceiling of the tunnel came down on them, and headed back to the pipe down from Hogwarts. They tried to keep their eyes and ears open for anything that shouldn't be there, but they were too tired to worry much and they were pretty certain that they were the only things in the tunnel anyway.

When they reached the pipe, Severus cast a Sonorus charm on himself and called up the pipe. "Did anyone work out a way to get us out of here?"

A few minutes later, the reply came back. "Yes, Madam Hooch will be there soon."

If Madam Hooch was coming, they were fairly certain of how they'd be getting out of there, by broom. Sure enough, they heard her robes flapping and her laughter as she swooped down the pipe. Angela cast the ball of light in the bend and cushioning charm on the wall across from the opening like Harry had done for the rest of them, but they needn't have worried, Madam Hooch knew her way around a broom and she shot out of the pipe and swept around to stop without touching the wall.

Her laughter as she stepped off the broom and starting pulling brooms out of her bag to return them to full size was choked off when she saw the bodies, but she wasn't prepared for the angry reactions when she asked whether the monster had killed them. Angela bit out. " _A_ monster killed them alright, Lockhart! The coward decided to kill us and come back with a story of how we'd all tragically died, so he tricked Pike and stole his wand and tried to blast us, but Sev managed to hit him first. The problem was that then, the Bombarda Maxima he tried to use on us went into the ceiling of the tunnel and brought it down. Pike was right next to him, so he was flattened with Lockhart."

Madam Hooch's expression was one of disgust as she thought about Lockhart's actions while she was handing out the brooms. Angela told her to start sending the others up, but to leave an extra broom with Rackclaw, Ragnar and the bodies. Madam Hooch did as she was asked, but stayed with Rackclaw and Ragnar as Angela, Sirius, Harry and Severus headed back down the tunnel on two brooms.

What they were doing was fairly obvious, and that was confirmed when the string of explosions was heard, coming closer down as they progressed. From the sound of it, they'd collapsed the ceiling all the way down the tunnel, so no-one would be getting into the Chamber of secrets now!

Sirius and Madam Hooch took Rackclaw and Ragnar as passengers, with the goblins levitating the bodies behind them. Severus didn't use brooms, as he shared the power of flight with Voldemort, so he went up first. He was followed by Angela, then Madam Hooch, Sirius, and Harry bringing up the rear as they expected the opening to close after him like the doors to the chamber had.

When they reached the top, they were met by the ones they'd left there, along with Poppy, and Dumbledore, who'd apparently appeared just after they went down into the tunnels. Amelia looked ready to kill something because she'd already heard what happened to Pike, and why.

Dumbledore tried to insist that they all come to his office to give their reports to him at once, but Angela put her foot down and sent Millie off with Poppy, after quietly asking Poppy to check her over very carefully. Poppy wasn't happy about the impression she was getting from her, but agreed readily, if she was right the poor girl needed help. Two of the goblins went with them, levitating the two bodies.

* * *

The rest of them went to Dumbledore's office and told him a bare bones modified version of the story, saying that only he was in the chamber, adding that the sword he got was the sword that used to be up on the wall there...

When Dumbledore questioned how Millie had come to be possessed, Harry explained that it was Riddle's diary from when he was a sixteen year old student at Hogwarts.

Dumbledore nodded "Brilliant." he said softly. "Of course, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen." He went on when those in the room were looking bewildered (and dubious, as there was little question that Hermione was the most brilliant student that Hogwarts had had).

"Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle. I taught him myself, fifty years ago, here at Hogwarts. Tom disappeared after leaving the school ... travelling far and wide to search for answers ... but he succumbed to the Dark Arts. He fell in with the very worst of our kind and they corrupted him. He underwent so many dark and dangerous transformations that when he returned as Lord Voldemort, he was hardly recognisable as the clever, handsome boy who had once been Head Boy here."

Harry cut off his reminiscing, because the gleam in his eye as he talked about what a handsome boy Riddle had been was unsettling. "Riddle actually told me that he was Voldemort to his inner circle before he left Hogwarts, when he was sixteen obviously as otherwise the version of himself he left in the diary wouldn't have known."

Dumbledore obviously wanted to contradict him, unhappy that Harry didn't go along with his story, but the grim faces in the room said that he'd get little mileage with any of them, so he changed his tack.

"I must thank you Harry." said Dumbledore, eyes twinkling again. "You must have shown me true loyalty down in the Secret Chamber. Only that could have called Fawkes to you."

Harry had to cover a smile at that, because while he had no doubt that Dumbledore took Fawkes' squawk as agreement, he knew it was outrage. His very real anger at Dumbledore using his given name when he'd repeatedly been told not to helped the cover up.

Dumbledore looked thoughtfully at Harry. "I imagine that Mister Riddle was quite interested in you Harry?"

Carefully keeping his anger off his face, Harry said. "Yes. He said some things that didn't make sense to me, like how we shared many talents and I could have been great if I went along with him…."

Dumbledore thought he had him, so he went with it.

"Yes, you can speak Parseltongue, Harry." he stated solemnly. "Because you got that talent from Lord Voldemort….who in turn can because he is the last remaining descendant of Salazar Slytherin. Unless I am mistaken, he transferred some of his powers to you on the night your parents were killed. Not intentionally, I'm sure but..."

"Are you saying that Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?" Harry cut in, playing shocked.

"It certainly seems so, yes."

"Why didn't the Sorting Hat put me in Slytherin then?" The Hat had a few things to say about that in his head, but Harry kept up the act of concentrating on Dumbledore.

"Where did the Hat say you would be most suited Harry?"

"It said that I could have fitted into any of the houses, but put me into Ravenclaw as the best fit for me." The Hat was enjoying reminding him of who it was chose Ravenclaw in his head.

"I see, alas, I believe that this shows that The Hat made an error with you, but then, it is nothing more than a simple construct with no true knowledge or intelligence…."

Harry shouted. "Stop, don't say anything! We need to see what his game is!" at The Hat in his head before it could shout at him, as Dumbledore went on.

"I am sure now, as I was then, that you were meant to be in Gryffindor. The Sword of Gryffindor coming to you is proof of that, as only a true Gryffindor could have called Godric's sword to him."

He glanced at the wall where the encased sword had resided for centuries and decided to try and get something over those damned goblins.

"That leads me to another question, do you know what happened to the sword after you killed the basilisk with it?"

Harry looked confused. "I put it back into the Hat and I thought that Fawkes brought it back here."

Dumbledore looked mournful. "Alas, it has not returned and the hat was empty, it would be a great loss if Gryffindor's sword were to disappear, as legend has it that it was a magical sword like its brother, Excalibur. I have asked the Hat where Gryffindor's sword went and it will only say that it has gone back to where it belongs. I wonder if I might ask you to try again Harry? If the Hat relinquished the sword to you once, it may again?"

Harry said. "Of course Headmaster." and stood to walk over to the Hat, reminding the Hat in his head that both swords should remain wherever they were as he did so. The Hat was affronted that Harry would think that he needed reminding, and they were still debating that when Harry picked up the Hat and put his hand inside. He smiled apologetically to Dumbledore and said "Sorry Headmaster."

As he put the hat down, he heard its voice in his head again. "You both just have to call for the swords when you need them My Lord. And I believe that that probably applies to me as well. You and your friends need to have formal inheritance tests done, because if I'm reading what I'm seeing right, the fates are gathering the old families for a major confrontation and you will need to know what you can claim."

Harry agreed in his head, but he was fighting to keep the confusion at the announcement off his face. Angela caught that and drew Dumbledore's attention to her by asking if that was all because she wanted to get her charges back to the tower so that they could be checked over properly.

Dumbledore nodded. "Yes, all for now Duchess Black, however I will require young Harry's assistance tomorrow to give me access to the Chamber of Secrets."

The look Angela gave him froze him. "You forget yourself Headmaster! You have been advised repeatedly that Duke Potter is to be addressed and referred to by his proper title. I allowed your slips in the heat of the previous discussions but I will allow it no more! From this point you will _only_ refer to Duke Potter by his proper title! Do you understand me?"

Dumbledore looked at her sourly. "Yes Duchess Black, I understand you!"

"Good, now as for your… I will give you the benefit of the doubt and call it a request. Duke Potter is not available for such an endeavour, and it would be a wasted effort anyway, as the tunnel is sealed."

"I really must insist! The basilisk must be harvested before it is wasted and Merlin knows what other treasures may be in there!"

Angela turned to Sirius, Amelia and Minerva. "Duke Black, Regent Bones, Deputy Headmistress McGonagall, we must call for an immediate meeting of the Hogwarts Board to select a new Headmaster, Mister Dumbledore has obviously lost his facilities if he believes that he can _insist_ anything and expect two Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses to bow to his wishes!"

Dumbledore went white when he realised what his eagerness to get his hands on the riches that were waiting in the chamber had gotten him into. "Duchess Black! I sincerely apologise! The word was but a slip of the tongue, I meant nothing by it, but surely you can see that we cannot allow something like the basilisk go to waste?"

Angela looked at the other two for about half a minute and then nodded regally. "Very well Mister Dumbledore, we will accept your explanation this time, however the next time will be your last! As I said, it is a moot point as the tunnel is sealed."

Dumbledore waved that away. "I understand that there was a cave in in the tunnel, but I will get the house elves to shore up the where you dug through properly."

"Is your deafness a medical condition, or arrogance Mister Dumbledore? For the last time, the tunnel is sealed! We hardly managed to keep a hole open long enough to get Duke Potter and Heiress Bulstrode out, and afterwards we collapsed the rest of the tunnel to ensure that if there are any other creatures in the chamber, they will be sealed in there, to protect our charges and the other students in Hogwarts."

" _ **What?**_ You had no right to do that! There's a fortune in that chamber and it rightfully belongs to m… it rightfully belongs to Hogwarts..."

Amelia cut him off. "Watch your tone Mister Dumbledore! You are skating perilously close to using up that last chance that Duchess Black so graciously gave you! However, I am interested in hearing your reasoning as to why…..Hogwarts has any rights to what is in Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets. Enlighten me!"

Dumbledore kicked himself for forgetting that the Potter Regent wasn't the only danger in the room. "Well I would have thought that it was obvious Madam Bones. The Chamber is at Hogwarts and was created by one of the Founders of Hogwarts, so therefore it is obviously part of Hogwarts!"

Amelia glanced at the others and then looked back. "Hmmm, it appears that your memory as well as your hearing and… other things may be failing Mister Dumbledore. As we were taught by Professor Binns, here at Hogwarts, Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets was a private project of his, one that he kept separate from Hogwarts and secret from the other Founders, so it is most definitely _not_ 'part of Hogwarts'. Quite aside from that, we have confirmed the contention of the many searchers over the past thousand years that the Chamber is not inside Hogwarts, and in fact it is somewhere under Black Lake, which puts it outside the boundaries of Hogwarts itself. So there is no case to be presented for Hogwarts to have any claim over the contents of the chamber itself, and even if it did, you are obviously forgetting the fact that the one who has the rightful claim to the basilisk itself is the one who killed it, Duke Potter."

"But he wouldn't have managed it unless my phoenix brought him the Sword of Gryffindor..."

Fawkes squawked indignantly again at that.

Amelia gave her a sympathetic look before she continued. "How long has Fawkes been with you Mister Dumbledore?"

Dumbledore snapped "About sixty or seventy years." In a tone that asked. 'What does that have to do with anything?'

"And in all that time, you have never bothered learning about phoenixes? A phoenix is not a pet, it does not belong to someone, it is a companion to the fortunate and supposedly worthy few! If you persist in treating Fawkes like your pet, I expect that you will be on your last chance in more than one subject today. Also, on the Sword of Gryffindor, have you forgotten that it _never_ belonged to Hogwarts, that the Goblin Nation reclaimed it along with numerous other heirlooms that they were sent here to recover on behalf of their rightful owners? As you have been told more than once Headmaster, Hogwarts has no rightful claim over anything in Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets, and as you have also been told by Duchess Black, the tunnel by which it is accessed has now been sealed, so this discussion is all moot."

Dumbledore was struggling to contain his rage at being talked to like that! How dare she lecture _him_ about what rights he, or Hogwarts, had over what was in the chamber, and _inform_ him that he knew nothing about phoenixes? _He_ was the one who had had a phoenix for twice as long as she'd even been alive…. His eyes gleamed as he suddenly remembered something then, and he hastily apologised to them all, citing stress and worry for the students involved.

They saw through his ploy of course, but they were tired of dealing with him and wanted to check on Millie and discuss what _really_ happened in the chamber anyway, so they left him with a last warning.

As soon as he'd gotten rid of them, Dumbledore locked the door, then turned and hurried across to Fawkes' perch. "Fawkes, you have been to the Chamber of Secrets, take me there now!"

There was no way to mistake the refusal in Fawkes' response and this pushed Dumbeldore to shouting. " _ **I am your master, you must obey me!**_ _"_

Fawkes refused again, and then looked him in the eye as she burst into flames, but unlike all the previous times she had had a burning day (which wasn't due anyway), no newborn phoenix chick poked its head up through the ashes that fell to the floor under the perch. Dumbledore dropped to his knees and started frantically searching through the ashes, but there was nothing there. Albus Dumbledore had been both rejected and abandoned by his phoenix, and that was a very damning statement about Albus Dumbledore.

* * *

The group went straight to the infirmary from Dumbledore's office. Poppy had confirmed Angela's fears about Millie, while technically a virgin she had suffered serious abuse since she'd started at Hogwarts, and Poppy had discovered evidence of serious abuse prior to that as well. Another thing that Poppy was upset about was that someone had been healing the signs of abuse while the girl was at Hogwarts, so someone on the staff knew about it and had been covering it up.

As none of them believed that she'd be safe there, they woke Millie up and got her agreement to take her to Corvus Tower, where no-one could get to her. When she was safe in Corvus Tower, they found that Millicent Bulstrode was made of steel, because she sat there and told Angela and Amelia everything that had happened to her. They wanted to kill her father and numerous others, but they all agreed that it would be better to destroy them instead, so Amelia began to prepare the case against them by getting her most trusted people to start collecting the evidence.

 ***** Unpleasantness starts *****

There was one who they would not allow to come out of this alive, Augustus Bulstrode, Millie's father. The Bulstrode family had forced the union with their son onto a Muggleborn witch who was the heiress to a sizable fortune in the Muggle world to shore up the crumbling finances of the House of Bulstrode towards the end of the first war with Voldemort, because they'd spent much of their fortune financing their master's campaign. The Mudblood wife was supposed to die quickly and leave the fortune to her husband's family, but her family's solicitors had ensured that if she died, the Bulstrodes would get nothing, so that plan had to be scrapped. Another complication came along when she became pregnant and subsequently had a daughter. That daughter was born into a hell that no child should ever have to experience, because Augustus and his friends liked playing with children (especially those with Muggle blood who were therefore good for nothing else) and had no morals.

The only two rules were applied to what they were allowed to do to Millicent were that they could not do anything to permanently damage or mark her anywhere that would show, and she had to remain a virgin, technically at least, because as the Heiress to a Noble and Ancient family, she would command a good bride price, so nothing was allowed to endanger that. When she started at Hogwarts, it was unfortunately the plans Millicent had in her head to deal with those who had hurt her that placed her in Slytherin, because Augustus was still using his daughter as the coinage to buy his way back into good standing in the senior Death Eater ranks after having the committed the crime against nature of not only marrying a Mudblood, but actually _breeding_ with it!

As she was no longer available as a plaything for his friends when she started school, Millicent was offered up to their sons at Hogwarts under the same rules as they fathers had used her, so long as she was not permanently damaged or marked and technically remained a virgin, they could do what they wanted with her. Her abuse had been an almost nightly occurrence, and if they were too exuberant, well their head of house would just heal her and slip her a potion to make her forget what had happened. He took a little in trade sometimes, because the restriction on virginity was no problem for him as he didn't like girls anyway.

 ***** Unpleasantness ends *****

* * *

There was another item that cropped up when they arrived in Corvus Tower, the newborn phoenix chick on Harry's bed that the two devil-birds were watching over. Harry felt Fawkes as soon as he was inside their wards and rushed to see her. The others watched them looking at each other without making a sound, and knew that they were communicating over something like a familiar bond. When they saw Harry stroke her head and tell her to rest, they knew that she was there to stay.

Everyone knew where Millie was but no-one dared say anything, including Dumbledore. Not that Dumbledore was saying anything to anyone, he was mostly staying in his chambers and ignoring everyone. Minerva saw Slughorn go to say something to her on a number of occasions, only to change his mind and scurry away. Minerva didn't know of Slughorn's part in what had been done to Millie as Angela and Amelia hadn't wanted to force her to have to cover up her reaction to him every time she saw him.

Millie split her time between Corvus Tower and Potter Manor. She was working with healers, in particular mind healers, every day to help her deal what had been done to her since she was a little girl. One thing that had to be addressed on the physical side though was her weight. She'd been overeating for years to make herself less appealing to those who preyed on her. Now that she was free of that, the extra weight was a danger to her health and they wanted to get rid of it as quickly as possible. Severus supplied a potion that would help burn the weight off and convert it to muscle mass quickly, and she went into a concentrated physical training regime.

Aside from the healers and physical training, Millie was also studying hard. The library and learning had been her sanctuary for years now and she was an exceedingly bright girl, so much so that she had actually been on par with Daphne as the top student in Slytherin and one of the top students in her year. On her own, she had gotten herself to the point where she had a good chance of getting through the Second year end of year exams OK, so they gave her a little tutoring on her weak spots in First and Second years and had her do the exams, while she dove into the Third year subjects. She might not be doing the Third year end of year exams with the others before school finished, but if she and the tutors believed that she was ready, she would be doing them then or before the end of the summer holidays, and going into Fourth year with the rest of them.

Another problem came out of Millie being rescued from her torment though, Daphne's friend Tracey Davis became a target. At the start of the year, there had just been four First year girls in Slytherin, Daphne, Millie, Tracey, and Pansy Parkinson. No-one had wanted to go up against the Greengrass family, so there had been little change when Daphne joined their group, Tracey had still been largely left alone because many of the Death Eaters' families relied on her father's business acumen to maintain the lifestyles that they wanted, and they had carte blanch on Millie and Pansy (Pansy was like Millie's mother and her own, even at that age she was experienced and willing). The problem came when the over-privileged deviants from the Death Eaters' families no longer had Millie to play with, as Pansy and the other willing tarts weren't enough to go around so they decided that they could get away with playing around with the Davis girl a little.

The family had been worried about something like that happening, so they'd had the elves watching Tracey. When a group of sixth year boys dragged her into an empty classroom, Dommy threw the equivalent of a starburst charm into the middle of them, grabbed Tracey and popped her out of there. Dommy then popped into Tracey's dorm room and collected all of her things, taking them back to the tower, as she would not be going back to the Slytherin dormitories.

* * *

While all of that was going on, they followed the Hat's advice and took the formal inheritance tests, and wasn't _that_ a surprise? Half of them only showed what was expected, Draco was now Heir to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black (Sirius had changed it, but he would probably go back to second heir again if Sirius and Angela had any children). Neville was Heir to the Noble and Ancient House of Longbottom. Susan was Heiress to the Noble and Ancient House of Bones. Padma was heiress to the equivalent of a couple of Noble Houses in India and Angelina, Katie and Lee's test showed them as heiress or heir to their family's Minor Houses as well.

The others, well they were a surprise. Daphne was Heiress to the Noble and Ancient House of Greengrass, but she was also named as Head of the Most Ancient House of Bodhmall, one of the original Druid guiding families. Millicent was Heiress to the Noble and Ancient House of Bulstrode (while it existed), but she was also named as Head of the Most Ancient House of Biróg. Luna was Heiress to the Minor House of Lovegood, but she was also named as Head of the Most Ancient House of Dornoll. Hermione was named as Head of the Most Ancient House of Cathbad, as she was the true heir through her father. The line of Cathbad hadn't appeared to show magic until it was crossed with her mother's Squib line of a later Druidess.

Fred and George were apparently the true heirs of a line that went back to the union of the children of Godric Gryffindor and Helga Hufflepuff. As Fred had already been accepted by the Sword of Gryffindor, he was named as Earl Gryffindor, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Gryffindor, while George was named as Earl Hufflepuff, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Hufflepuff.

Harry was the one who shocked everyone though. Being Duke and Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter had already been confirmed, but he was also named as the true heir of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Peverell on his father's side, while his mother had apparently been a similar story to Hermione, because on her father's side, the line was traced back to a union between Helena Ravenclaw and Septimus Slytherin, the children of Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin, while on her mother's side, she was the true heir of the Most Ancient House of Myrddin, also known as Merlin. Thus Harry became Duke Potter-Peverell, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Potter and Peverell, Earl Ravenclaw-Slytherin, Head the Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Ravenclaw and Slytherin, Head of the Most Ancient House of Myrddin, and Baron Flamel, Head of the Noble and Ancient House of Flamel.

Obviously Merlin, the Sorting Hat, was correct in that the fates were moving to set the pieces for a major confrontation. They had brought back ten of the original dozen ruling houses of Magical Britain (where the Hogwarts board came from) back for the first time in nearly nine hundred years. The Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses were back to three, they'd re-instated the four Noble and Most Ancient Houses, and also re-instated the five Most Ancient Druid Houses.

Gringott, Angela, Augusta, Amelia, Narcissa and Andromeda had feral grins plastered over their faces when they saw the results of the inheritance tests, because they knew that many of those who were sitting on the Wizengamot would be shitting themselves when they saw that the ten Most Ancient Houses had been claimed, and that five of them represented the highest titles and biggest holdings in Magical Britain.

The thing was, most of those titles and holdings hadn't sat there, waiting, while the Houses were dormant, they'd been claimed by other houses through the Druids' Council or Wizengamot. Now that the rightful holders had been magically accepted though, all of the titles and holdings that had been claimed would be magically returned to them, so a lot of houses were about to lose much of what they had had for centuries. The five Druid Houses only had equivalent holdings to Noble Houses, but Peverell, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff all had very substantial holdings associated with them and the ones who'd claimed them wouldn't want to give them up.

When they were discussing this in Gringott's office, Gringott asked Harry and Fred to call for the swords again. He confirmed that Fred's sword was the Sword of Gryffindor, but he was more interested in the sword that came to Harry. That was explained when he told them the story of the sword.

The legend that Dumbledore had mentioned were true, there were two fabled magical goblin swords that went back beyond the sixth century, one was best known as Excalibur, the other as the Sword of Gryffindor. When Hogwarts was being built, the two swords were reset for Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin. Godric's sword had a large ruby in the pommel, while Salazar's had a large emerald in its pommel to match their house colours. Gringott finished by saying that as the swords had accepted them, the Goblin Nation formally acknowledged their right to hold the swords, and he handed the swords back to them.

Harry was still trying to put this together. "Wait a minute! Are you saying?…."

Gringott gave a ghastly goblin grin. "Yes Harry, your sword is the famous Excalibur."

They went to the vaults to get the house rings for their new houses. Harry and Fred were also looking for the scabbards for their swords, but there was nothing like that in the vaults. Both vaults did have items that were both similar and strange though, eight inch long dragon fangs which hung on chains from what looked like belt loops, and which had narrow slots cut through them. Harry was looking at the one in the Slytherin vault for a minute, and on a whim tried sliding the sword into it. The sword seated perfectly in the fang, but the moment he released the hilt, it disappeared. In a panic he wished for the sword, and he almost dropped it when it appeared in his hand again. He tried it a couple of times more and when happy with it, he threaded Excalibur into the fang to send it wherever it went and threaded his belt through the belt loop before going to tell Fred about what the fangs were for.

Back in Gringott's office, they were going through what they would need to do to formally accept their houses when Fred and George suddenly burst out laughing. When Excalibur appeared in Harry's hand, George made the effort to control himself enough to explain. "We're sorry Harry, but we suddenly realised that, that, those idiots at Hogwarts were right, you really are….."

Harry's eyes went wide as he realised what they were saying and he blurted out. "Oh fuck no!"

Just before the twins chorused. "The Heir of Slytherin!"

All of them who held seats on the Wizengamot were called to a special session to discuss these houses that had suddenly reappeared out of nowhere. Dumbledore appeared to preside as the Chief Warlock, but he was quite subdued, he didn't even note that separate boxes for the dozen original houses had been added.

They let those who wanted to argue that these couldn't be legitimate claims go on for a while, then called in Fred and George to start the show. Even when their Head of House rings were magically accepted, the houses who were losing the most tried to argue, until Fred called the Sword of Gryffindor to him and shouted. "Enough! Any further questions in regard to our right to claim these titles, holdings and seats will be answered in trial by combat, by the sword!" As none of them wanted to face a legendary sword like the Sword of Gryffindor, their accusers shut up.

Then it was Harry's turn, and as expected, he had even more arguments than Fred and George put together, because he was reclaiming more titles and holdings than them put together. His patience was running out, so he made the same call about trial by the sword a lot more quickly than Fred had. A few looked tempted to try, after all taking his holdings would make them the richest and most powerful wizards in Magical Britain, but their friends pulled them down and they all gave in to whatever arguments were presented.

Harry stayed where he was when they called the girls in, and Fred came down as well. The message as they both stood there with their swords resting on their shoulders was clear, any questioning of these four Druid Houses would be met by the sword. It apparently worked, as there were no contests to their acceptance.

When all the titles and houses had been accepted, the clerk began calling out the titles and votes held by each seat, starting with the original twelve Most Ancient Houses. Then he went through the Noble and Ancient, Noble and Minor Houses, some of these had been degraded to Noble or Minor Houses when they lost their ancient or other titles, and others had been ejected altogether due to losing most or all of their titles and holdings through them being reclaimed by reclaimed by Harry, Fred, George or the girls. It cascaded from there. After the ten original seats had been reinstated for the Most Ancient Houses, there were another four seats that had been vacated that the factions began to haggle over.

What the haggling factions were too tied up to realise was that the Aurors weren't letting anyone leave the chamber, or at least they didn't realise that until the noise of the people demanding to be let out drew their attention. When the Wizengamot members started demanding to know what was going on, Madam Bones announced that there was another item on the agenda for this session, a trial which directly effected key members of the Wizengamot.

Dumbledore was still feeling too sorry for himself to object, so he just opened the matter as per her instructions, and the single accused chair suddenly became over a dozen chairs, which were automatically filled by Wizengamot members, and the benches behind the accused chairs were filled with a dozen more Wizengamot members in chains as well.

As Amelia read out the list of charges, Aurors brought in over twenty more accused, but most of these were teenagers. The time of reckoning had come for those who had abused Millie.

 **NB: Yes, the 'that feels so good' line was from the knocker in Labyrinth. Took me a while to remember where I'd heard it. ;^)**

 **BTW: Given that the four Founders supposedly made their lives around Hogwarts, I believe that having their children growing up around each other would make it conceivable that they would end up pairing off.**


	7. A New Challenge

**There's been a change at the end of the last chapter, sorry. Instead of them walking out when the titles and votes for the seats were read out by the clerk, the chamber was sealed and they moved straight into the trial for those who had abused Millie.**

 **NB: After some of the responses I got in Heritage I think I need to clarify this up front, the primary purpose of the betrothal contracts here is to protect the girls from being forced into betrothals with other, less savoury, characters with evil intentions. These contracts can be cancelled if the girls find someone else they want to be with or the need for protection is gone, so multiple betrothals do _not_ mean that Harry has a harem. The reason the girls were in his bed was to comfort them and he's only just turned twelve, so he wasn't doing anything more than hugging and kissing in this period. Harry, Neville and Draco will probably have two wives later, but that's years away at this point.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.**

One thing was immediately clear to just about everyone in the Wizengamot, nearly all of the accused were Purebloods, and most of them had known Death Eater connections. The first thing that Madam Bones did was to show an overview of a young girl's memories of what had been done to her over a period from when she was around six or seven, through until a month or so previously when she was around twelve.

The galleries and most of the Wizengamot seats had to be silenced when the uproar from them grew too loud. Due to the limited birth rates in Magical Britain, children were generally cherished and protected, so seeing these acts of abuse against this child caused cries of horror and outrage, all the more so because the voices and faces of most of the abusers were well known, and the child was not only the heiress to a Noble and Ancient House, she had just been accepted as being the Head of a Most Ancient House that was near the top of the hierarchy of Magical Britain.

When Madam Bones started questioning the accused and they refused to answer, Frank Longbottom immediately called for the ruling that prevented Purebloods from being forcibly questioned under Veritaserum to be abolished. Sirius seconded the motion and with so many Pureblood votes currently voided due to the fact that they were the accused, the family had no trouble carrying the vote. With that passed and the Veritaserum administered, the answers from the accused became much more interesting, and incriminating.

They put up wards to prevent Millie and the gallery seeing or hearing most of what was going on quite early in the piece to protect Millie and prevent a riot. Having Dumbledore tied up in his own private dramas gave Amelia a free hand to extract proof of the Death Eaters' other activities and connections, which in turn meant that she was sending her trusted Aurors out to bring other named Death Eaters and their supporters in to be tried as well.

The trial ran well into the night, and in the end sixty to seventy accused had been tried. The first part was the abuse against Millie and those who had been behind the plot to force her to be possessed and used by Tom Riddle to open the Chamber of Secrets, attack the Muggleborn at Hogwarts and regain the ability to act on his own. The accused were questioned, and the convictions and reparations were determined. All of the titles, holdings, seats and fortunes of the Houses of Bulstrode, Flint and Slughorn were successfully claimed for Millie as the House of Biróg, and varying percentages of the titles, holdings and fortunes of the houses of the other accused were taken as well.

As a result, the now Noble and Most Ancient House of Biróg became one of the richest and most powerful houses in Magical Britain that day, and they forced the dissolution of the Houses of Bulstrode, Flint and Slughorn as well, so they ceased to exist. Millie's father, Horace Slughorn and the Head of the House of Flint all went through the Veil of Death for their actions and two dozen more went to Azkaban for terms of up to life. Over a dozen of the younger perpetrators were stripped of their magic, obliviated and dumped in the Muggle world as they were deemed too young to be convicted as adults for their actions.

After that, the DMLE questioned the other Death Eaters identified under Veritaserum and they were convicted on the basis of their testimonies. Of the others charged for unrelated Death Eater related activities, a dozen went through the Veil of Death, and a dozen more went to Azkaban for up to life. The remainder were fined and put on watch lists for their actions.

The Purebloods and the Minister for Magic were panicking by the end of this session, because over a third of the seats in the Wizengamot (all of them Pureblood) had been vacated or left without anyone in a position to control their votes, and many of the Senior positions in the Ministry of Magic had also been vacated. What was more important as far as the Minister for Magic was concerned was the fact that he had lost all of his primary backers and most of the others as well, so he no longer had access to the funds he used to buy votes or buy himself out of trouble, his world was falling apart.

This Wizengamot session had also put through new rulings that had dashed the Minister's burgeoning hopes of getting his hands on the sudden influx of moneys claimed from the convicted Death Eaters' vaults. These rulings had implemented restrictions on what the claimed moneys could be used for and strict reporting requirements as well. This meant that the goblins would be reporting directly to the Wizengamot about exactly where any of that money went without anyone at the Ministry being able to cover anything up. At least Fudge had had the satisfaction of seeing Dumbledore reacting to the comment about how the idea behind this had come from controls implemented in the past year by the Hogwarts board to address the money issues at Hogwarts.

Another thing that many were worried about was that no-one could remember anything about the abuse victim. Before the end of the session, everything about the abuse victim and what had come to her had been put under a fidelius charm, so she ceased to exist to most people. Millicent Bulstrode was forgotten, and Countess Millicent Biróg, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Biróg was to be a new starter in the Nobles Fourth year group at Hogwarts after the summer break.

Millie had quite a way to go before she would be free of what she'd endured in her past, but she was getting help and comfort to deal with that, those who had wronged her had been punished, and she was starting a new life where she would never again have to endure that type of treatment again, so her life was heading in a better direction. She would be doing all of her Third year end of year exams over the summer break as Millicent Biróg, so she would officially be coming in as a new starter at Hogwarts.

* * *

While the humans had been having fun turning their world upside down, the Goblin Nation had been processing what was in the Chamber of Secrets. About a week after they killed the basilisk and kicked Riddle out again, the Potter elves took Gringott and a team of curse breakers and other experts to value whatever they were supposed to process and sell in the chamber. As well as the family, Harry took Fawkes along, just in case the basilisk he'd killed hadn't been the only thing that Salazar Slytherin left down there.

Gringott and the other goblins embarrassed themselves by jumping when they saw the basilisk Harry killed, because even though some of them had seen the memory, seeing it in the flesh was still a shock. They searched the chamber proper, but aside from the basilisk, the shed skin from the tunnel and the snake columns and friezes that they'd remove and sell off, there was nothing else out there. That left what was behind the bust of Slytherin.

It was a given that Salazar Slytherin wouldn't have been climbing in and out through the opening that the basilisk had used, and the goblins didn't take long to discover what appeared to be another, more civilised portal in the bust. The curse breakers confirmed that they couldn't find any curses or other traps around it, so once everyone indicated that they were ready, Harry called out in parseltongue to open the portal.

Fawkes went in first, and she let Harry know that it seemed to be safe in there, so they cautiously entered the chambers behind the bust, carefully scanning for traps, dark magic and anything living as they went. The chambers on that level were fit for a king, but were more comfortable and elegant than would have been expected for the middle ages. When they found nothing dangerous on that level, their eyes were drawn to the stairs down to the lower levels, where they knew the basilisk's lair to be.

Some of them stayed and searched on that level while the others cautiously headed down the stairs. The next level down had what were presumably chambers for students or apprentices, along with storerooms and potions labs. When they were satisfied that there was nothing to fear on that level, they headed down again, and when they reached the floor below and opened the door into the basilisk's chamber, the fearless Gringotts warriors and code breakers who were in front cried out and jumped back in fright.

The sight that caused this was the dozens of cast off skins, ranging from about ten feet to over seventy feet in length, that almost filled the chamber, because the flickering green torchlight made it appear as though they were moving. While their brothers in arms taunted them for this, they had to concede that the sight unnerved them as well, even knowing just what it was they were seeing.

Of course, their eyes gleamed as they estimated the value of this much basilisk skin as well because even though the old skins were worth a pittance compared to the basilisk carcass in the chamber proper, even the smallest thousand year old skins were worth a small fortune by most's standards. They were already planning on how to slowly release the basilisk parts onto the market to avoid driving the prices down. What was rendered from the carcass would be released first, and then the skins, on the basis of newest to oldest. Even with the tiny percentage that they knew the Head Goblin would allow them to take from the proceeds, the goblin nation and those involved would be earning a fortune from this.

The skins also highlighted another matter that required clarification, because for the basilisk to have continued to grow and leave those skins, it must have been eating, and going by the bones in the tunnel, it must have somehow been getting out to hunt at times, up until the access tunnels had collapsed anyway. Those who had been in the original party looked ill as they realised that the muck that they'd been walking through in the tunnel to get to and from the chamber was actually centuries of basilisk crap.

Once they'd confirmed that there was no threat in the basilisk's chamber, a team was left there to catalogue the skins while the others went up to investigate the levels above the one they came in at. These levels appeared to hold the chambers for Slytherin family members, and the master's chambers. The highlight of this was Salazar Slytherin's private library in the master's chambers, because it held many priceless tomes that had been lost for centuries. Of particular interest to Harry were the many tomes and journals which were recorded in a strange variation of ogham script and runes that was apparently only readable by parselmouths. This was because they gave a record of a separate branch of powerful magic that only parselmouths could use, and Salazar had also used this language for his journals in an attempt to ensure that no-one but his heirs would be able to read them.

While they were going through Salazar's library, and the general library on the main level, they were called back down to the basilisk's chamber, because the goblins cataloguing the skins had found something else behind them, doors to vaults that the basilisk must have been guarding. Like everything else to do with Salazar's Chamber, these vault doors required a parselmouth to open them, and when Harry did, they found ten times the wealth that had been in the Slytherin vaults in Gringotts.

The contents of the chamber vaults were catalogued and transferred to the Slytherin vaults in Gringotts, as were some of the rare and priceless tapestries and the like from the chambers above. As well as being protected by the Goblin Nation there, the money could be added to the investments they were making on behalf of the family and increase what they had available for what they needed to do. The contents of both Salazar's and the general library and some of the other items from the chambers were transferred to Potter Manor, and the goblins were investigating the market for the remainder of the items in the chamber, any items that could realise good money would be sold, while the rest would probably remain. There was also a question as to what to do with the chamber itself once this was done, as there was great value in an impregnably warded chamber which was magically maintained and could only be reached by those allowed, so they were having discussions on that matter.

* * *

The group all did well in their Third year end of year exams, and Tracey Davis' results were in the top ten for the First year students. They knew that Millie would easily pass her Third Year exams before the end of the Summer break, and they were banking on getting Tracey and Daphne's little sister Astoria up to the point where they could pass their Second year end of year exams by then as well, so the two of them could go into Third year as the rest of them went into Fourth year. The plan was for all sixteen of them to be doing their OWLs together at the end of that year.

Once they had the controlling vote in the Wizengamot, they had had Dumbledore's laws forcing students to go to Hogwarts after they turned eleven and start in Year one repealed, so as long as she could show that she had the requisite knowledge of the subjects, Astoria could start in higher years. Like Hermione, Daphne and Millie had before they started at Hogwarts, Astoria already knew enough to pass most of the First year exams through her own studies, so they had few doubts about her qualifying to start in Third year.

The reason Tracey and Astoria had been added into the group was an urgent notice from Gringott that Cyrus Greengrass, Daphne and Astoria's father, had replaced Daphne with Astoria as his heir after Daphne had been accepted as the Head of the Most Ancient House of Bodhmall. He had then used their elevated status to try and rush through betrothal contracts with quite hefty bride prices for both girls. Seeing what he was trying to marry them off to at twelve and ten enraged and horrified the family, so with Daphne's agreement, they quickly accepted the betrothal contracts that he had already offered to Harry for the two girls, using ancient rituals to bend time enough to ensure that they were shown to have been magically accepted for Harry by the Houses of Peverell and Ravenclaw before the new betrothal contracts were lodged.

They also made up and lodged documents under the same processes to establish the 'traditional' caveats for any marriages into any of the reinstated Noble and Most Ancient Houses which stated that the Most Ancient Houses would take over as the girls' magical guardians and oversee the girls' upbringing until they were married to ensure that they were raised with the proper values. The fact that the dates on the documents were taken as the dates of the rulings had Gringott grinning in anticipation of Greengrass or anyone else trying to challenge this.

Even if it had been possible to question the integrity of the goblins without starting a war (which was most unlikely), with aging spells and the like there was no way of definitively proving whether the scroll had been created a thousand years ago, or a few days ago, so these caveats had to be accepted as the established and applicable rules to marry into these Houses. Cyrus' arguments that he had not been made aware of these rules and that the betrothal contracts had been offered as _either_ of his daughters to Duke _Potter_ were dismissed with the response that it was the applicant's responsibility to appraise themselves of the rules of the house that they wished to link their house to, nowhere did the contracts offered stipulate that both could not be accepted and the Duke had the right to accept the betrothals under any of his titles.

The agreed, and much lower, bride prices for these betrothal contracts had been automatically transferred as at the day and time the contracts were magically accepted, so when Cyrus attempted to lodge the new betrothal contracts for the girls, they had been rejected as Daphne was already betrothed to Duke Peverell and Astoria was already betrothed to Earl Ravenclaw at that point. Cyrus was enraged to have lost the hefty bride prices he'd managed to negotiate for his daughters, and the reparations that he had to offer for having bilked two more powerful traditional Pureblood families after pushing so hard for the betrothals cost him even more.

Finding out about these standard caveats when Angela, Sirius, Remus and Severus arrived with Daphne, goblin guards and house elves to pack the girls' things up and collect Astoria almost pushed Cyrus over the edge. They greatly enjoyed advising Cyrus and his legal representation that these caveats had applied to the respective houses for nearly a thousand years.

By this stage, Cyrus was ruined, because he'd also lost any hope of being able to deliver on the promises he'd made to the senior Death Eaters that getting one of his daughters married to Harry Potter would guarantee them a path to information and control of Harry Potter, and he no longer had any way of returning the _investments_ they'd made with the House of Greengrass for those promises after he'd lost so much once all those titles, holdings and the earnings from them had been reclaimed by the original Ruling Houses. The only thing Cyrus could do to keep his life was to agree to do anything the Death Eaters told him to, because offering his wife would do little to assuage his debt to them. While still a beauty, Kallisto Greengrass would refuse most of them outright as the proud daughter of a powerful Noble and Ancient House and attempting to force her to do anything against her will would most likely to ensue in a blood feud between her father's House and anyone involved.

The thing was, while Daphne and Astoria's upbringing had been nothing like the horror Millie went through, the Greengrass family moved in similar circles as the Bulstrodes, so many of the families they dealt with were rather unsavoury, and the stories about the older men that the girls had been offered to had been bad enough to be certain that those marriages would have been rather abusive, and worse than their joyless upbringing under the strict control of their uncaring parents. So, taking both of them away from their parents was really the only way to give them a chance for a safe and happy life, and if they found someone that they wanted to be with later, the caveats on the betrothal contracts meant that the Heads of the Most Ancient Houses they were contracted to had become their magical guardians, so those betrothal contracts could easily be cancelled and new ones made with their chosen partners.

While they were dealing with Pureblood betrothal politics, they discussed the protections offered with the rest of the girls and their parents. Angela only had to point out how much better protected Hermione, as a Muggleborn witch, would be if she were betrothed to the Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter for Hermione to agree that it made sense, and she liked the idea of being betrothed to Harry anyway, so as Angela was her magical guardian it was a simple matter to get that betrothal contract registered. They left her parents out of this process as Hermione couldn't spare the time to deal with them at the moment. Tracey's parents were no fools, they knew that there was little they could do to protect their daughter if one of the powerful houses decided to claim her. Tracey understood this as well, so when they were asked whether they wanted to protect Tracey with a betrothal contract to Harry they agreed, and she became betrothed to Earl Slytherin. The discussion with Luna and Xeno was similar, except that Luna made the choice to become betrothed to the Heir to the Noble and Ancient House of Longbottom and Xeno just agreed and signed the contact.

With Padma's agreement, Sirius accepted the contract that had been offered by her father for her betrothal to Draco, and they also got betrothal contracts signed between Fred and Angelina and George and Katie, so that just about all of the girls were protected against their families agreeing to betrothal contracts for them (willingly or otherwise) as the Houses of their betrothed were strong enough to withstand any challenges to their betrothals. It was agreed that the Houses of Bones and Biróg were strong enough that Susie and Millie shouldn't _need_ betrothal contracts to be safe, but they had ones for Susie and Nev and Millie and Draco, ready to be used if necessary. Of course, the fact that half of the newly betrothed couples had enough attachment to each other to make strong marriages in the future a distinct possibility simplified the process quite a bit.

* * *

Over the summer break, they discovered that Dumbledore was obviously still following through on whatever plans he had for Harry and their world. Given that Minerva, Sirius, the twins, Angie, Katie and Lee were quidditch mad, and the rest of them enjoyed it, Sirius had reserved a large box for the family at the same level as the Ministry's box at the World Cup match. Their 'camp site' was made up of a cluster of magical tents to accommodate the numbers they had.

At the match itself, Fudge was incensed to see the Director of the DMLE as part of the group who'd taken so much from him when they used the Wizengamot to decimate his supporters and tried to take her to task for that, but she calmly pointed out that she was allowed personal time and her choice of friends, and for that matter she was better placed to oversee DMLE personnel in the event of something happening at the World Cup if she were present. Crouch was even more angry to see the Longbottoms, who had ruined him, but he was bright enough to keep his mouth shut, especially after Augusta caught his eye and all but challenged him to make a scene.

The visiting dignitaries from the French, Bulgarian and Irish Ministries of Magic were bemused by the ridiculous display that the British Minister for Magic was putting on in front of them, but Louis Delacour, the Deputy Minister of Magic for France, was actually more interested in the reactions of the men and boys in this group to his wife and daughters, or more to the point, their lack of reaction. Apolline, Fleur and Gabrielle Delacour were veela, and as such Apolline and Fleur were normally mobbed by the vast majority of males because of the draw of the allure of mature veela. Louis had had to keep most of the men in the Ministry box away from his family, but when they were introduced to the famous Harry Potter and the rest of the party in Duke Black's box, none of the men or boys there appeared to be overly effected by their allure.

After he shared a look of confusion over this with his wife Apolline, she gently probed the males of the group, only to be rejected and admonished for such impolite behaviour. She'd seen enough to recognise that they were all strong occlumens, even the younger boys, but she put her surprise at that aside as she apologised profusely and tried to explain how she and her husband had been greatly surprised by the lack of reaction to their veela allure and she hadn't been able to stop herself from attempting to see why this was so.

Apolline was no fool, and she dropped the subject at a signal from Angela, with a glance at Barty Crouch, because she understood that Crouch was an accomplished linguist and therefore would be listening to everything that they were saying. Louis quickly accepted Angela's invitation for his daughters to join the other children in Duke Black's box for the match and the Delacour family to join them for drinks after the match as he'd picked up her response as well. The Delacours were also interested to see that four of the sons of Arthur Weasley, one of the most pleasant of the representatives of the British Ministry of Magic who was there with two of his sons and his daughter, were actually there as part of Duke Black's party, rather than the Ministry party.

It was notable that not one of the party in Duke Black's box needed be restrained when the veelas who were cheering for the Bulgarian National team put on a show with their veela allure, whereas most of the men in the Ministry box did (including the British Minister for Magic and the Bulgarian and Irish Ministers), and so did many others in the stands. The Delacours decided that they would have many questions for the other party when they were alone.

* * *

Once the match was over, it was obvious that the fact that the Irish 'home team' won was wildly popular with the fans from the British Isles, who of course made up the majority of those present for the match, from the boisterous partying that broke out everywhere, and was most likely to continue through the night. The Delacours were escorted to the Black camp site by French and British Aurors, who grudgingly joined the goblin guards outside to protect the tents.

It was a pleasant interlude between the Delacours and their hosts, and Angela was quite frank and honest when she told them why most of the children in their group already had a good grasp of occlumency and the others had started learning it. When Augusta stepped in to explain why they hadn't wanted Barty Crouch listening in on their discussions, Louis snorted and said that he could understand that after dealing with the man for the arrangements for the tournament.

He realised that he'd let something slip that he shouldn't, but he already trusted these people more than he did the British Ministry, so he explained. "It is the Triwizard Tournament, a contest between the premier magical schools of Europe that was held every five years for five hundred years. This was supposed to remain a secret until it is announced, but the Headmaster of Hogwarts and the British Ministry of Magic have been pushing for the past year to get the tournament reinstated. They have finally offered enough inducements and promises to make it safer for the Ministries of France and Bulgaria to agree for the students of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang to take part in the tournament again and it will be hosted at Hogwarts this year."

Minerva, Filius, Augusta and Amelia were furious that this was the first that they had heard of a major inter-school tournament being held at Hogwarts in the year that was about to start, but Angela latched onto one part of what he said. "What do you mean, 'promises to make it safer' Louis?"

His grimace as he glanced at Apolline said this had been discussed heatedly in the Delacour household. "This tournament has had a bloody history, as competitors, officials and spectators were killed every time it was held. That was why it was banned over two hundred years ago. The British Department of Magical Cooperation and Department of Magical Games and Sports have assured us that they have removed enough of the truly dangerous elements of the tournament to make it much safer, and just to be sure, they will be restricting participants to only those who have reached their majority." He glanced at Fleur in aggravation.

"Not that that is any comfort to me, because my daughter will have reached her majority by then and she is determined to represent Beauxbatons in the tournament, nothing we say can change her mind on this." The determined look in Fleur's eye as she looked back at her father gave truth to this statement. Angela and the others quietly breathed a sigh of relief at that though, because they knew that most of the boys and some of the girls in their extended family would have been tempted to test themselves in a tournament like this.

The adults moved on to safer topics of discussion, while the children got to know each other. Gabrielle was delighted to have Astoria and Luna, who were only one and two years older than her, there to talk to, while Fleur was enjoying mixing with the others. She immediately got on with Dora, Angie and Katie, as they were only two or three years older or younger than her, and she found the other girls remarkably mature and interesting to talk to as well, so the girls meshed quite well.

As she'd learned to expect by now, coming into a group of men, the veela in her immediately searched for the best potential mates in the group. She was surprised by how drawn she was to the young Duke, as he was remarkably charming, mature and powerful for his age, attractive too, but he was five years younger than her and she felt the strength of his links with at least two of the girls so she knew that he would not be a mate for her. The red headed twins were nice and interesting, but they didn't have his power or intellect, and they were linked to Angie and Katie as well, so they also were out of consideration. Their eldest brother Bill was quite interesting, charming, intelligent, powerful and had an exciting life as a curse breaker, but she could feel his link to Dora so he, too was restricted to being a good friend at most.

It was therefore the last brother who caught her eye, Charlie was a few years older than her, nice, intelligent, powerful and he also had an interesting and exciting life as a dragon handler in Romania. Without any serious links to any women, Charlie was the best potential mate in this group, and therefore the best potential mate she had found in England (truth be told, anywhere for that matter). Fleur tried to disregard her veela side's evaluation of the men she met as she enjoyed the surprisingly engaging conversations she was having with these interesting people, but it did make her gravitate to Charlie.

Her mother was watching her from across the room and smiled as her veela made the same evaluations and reached the same conclusions as her daughter's. This was a remarkable group of young men (there was no question that even the youngest were men, and in fact the youngest, Harry Potter, was more of a man than many twice his age or more), but this Charlie Weasley had considerable potential as a good mate for her daughter. She and Louis would have to ensure that they talked to him as well.

Angela had caught Apolline's interest in Charlie and quietly gave her the background on him. She snorted at Apolline's thoughtful nod when she mentioned that, as the second son of Molly Weasley, the last of the Noble House of Prewett, Charlie had inherited the titles of Baron, and Head of the Noble House of Prewett, as Bill was the Heir to Arthur's titles. Angela waved away Apolline's attempt to explain why the title was important for acceptance by the Noble Houses, saying that she knew Noble House politics quite well.

* * *

It was around this point that Rackclaw interrupted them to say that there was some disturbance in the camps. The Delacours were surprised by how wands suddenly appeared in the hands of everyone in the Black party, and how quickly it was arranged for Apolline and the girls to stay with the others while Bill, Charlie, Amelia, Louis and the Aurors went to investigate. Louis was out of the tent before he realised that they'd already covered his arrangements because they understood that he'd be worried about the safety of the French people attending the Cup.

Amelia was soon swearing when she found that nearly all of her Aurors had been called to the Ministry tents on Barty Crouch's orders, and she made it quite clear in her patronus message that any Aurors who weren't back out there dealing with the trouble makers by the time she got there would be _ex-_ Aurors in the morning. Louis was also swearing when he saw that none of the Irish or Bulgarian Aurors were helping with the situation either, they had apparently been all called to the Ministry tent to guard their Ministers as well.

The sudden influx of British and French Aurors made the trouble makers in Death Eater cloaks and masks drop everything and apparate away as quickly as they could, so the Aurors only managed to stun half a dozen of them, and two of the stunned ones had been grabbed and taken away by the others, though one of them had lost a foot to a splinching error. Just after they disappeared, someone cast the dark mark from a copse of trees nearby, but by the time Sirius, Remus, Bill and Charlie got there whoever did it had disappeared again.

While they were looking for evidence that might have been left, they had to quickly drop to the ground to escape the sudden barrage of stunners and stronger spells that were thrown at them. When they jumped up again, they were facing the wands of about a dozen Aurors and Barty Crouch. It was a powder keg situation until Amelia arrived with Louis and the other Aurors from where they'd been securing the stunned Death Eaters and Amelia barked at the Aurors to lower their wands. Most of them had heard the threat that they'd be fired if they didn't do their jobs, so they did as she said quick smart.

Crouch and the few who didn't were rather forcibly disarmed, but that wasn't enough to stop Crouch shouting. "See, I knew that Black was in league with you-know-who! We caught him red handed casting the dark mark, him, the werewolf and these two!…."

Amelia cut him off. "Shut up Crouch! You didn't catch them doing _anything_! _Duke_ Black, Baron Lupin, Baron Weasley and Mister Weasley were all with me in the camps, dealing with the Death Eaters when that dark mark was cast, they came here to try and catch whoever cast it while we were overseeing securing the ones we caught, is that not correct, Sous-Ministre Delacour?"

Louis gave Crouch a disdainful look. "Oui, Director Bones, that is most assuredly correct and I will testify to that if required!"

Crouch wasn't a fool, just ruled by his anger and grudges, so he realised that he was in a no-win situation here and hastily backed down, insisting that it was understandable to draw the conclusions he had when he arrived at the location where the dark mark had been cast from to find someone who'd been suspected of working with he-who-must-not-be-named.

Amelia didn't bother responding to him, she just ordered the Aurors to scour the area and try and find anything that the person who had _really_ cast the dark mark might have left. She'd already taken note of the Aurors who'd come with Crouch and had therefore been acting under his orders, in defiance of _her_ orders. She probably wouldn't be able to take any action against Dawlish, because he was supposedly protecting the Minister and therefore had had an excuse to stay with him, but she'd have as many of the others as she could out of the Aurors before the week was out! If they were Aurors, they took their bloody orders from her, _not_ Barty Crouch, who'd been thrown out of the job in disgrace over ten years ago!

As she didn't have the patience to deal with them, once she'd given the Aurors their orders she told Crouch to go back to the Minister and glared at him until he'd gone, then left Kingsley in charge of the others and went back to the Black camp site with Louis and the others. When they'd confirmed that everyone was accounted for and got everyone's stories, Amelia called Betsy, the Bones house elf who normally served her, and had Betsy pop her back to her office at the Ministry. It hadn't taken much to break the four so-called Death Eaters that they brought in, but unfortunately they only wannabes.

The Death Eaters were trying to build up their numbers after they'd been decimated by the recent purge that they'd managed to pull off through the trial for what had been done to Millie…. Amelia took a moment to savour how quickly and well the girl had bounced back in a safe, supportive, loving environment, no-one would recognise Millicent Bulstrode in the trim, attractive, vibrant girl she was now, and it had been a joy to see her laughing and having fun with the other kids at the World Cup before the Death Eaters started.

She shook her head, as happy as she was for Millie, she had work to do! They'd learned that the Death Eaters were rounding up the dregs of Magical Britain to beef up their numbers and this business at the World Cup had been a training run for them. From what the ones they captured had said, it appeared that there had only been one or two real Death Eaters there, and it must have been one of them who cast the dark mark. She was getting the Aurors to round up the ones that had been named by the prisoners, but she didn't expect that to come up with anything important. As expected, they hadn't found anything at the site where the dark mark had been cast from either.

Just as Amelia was getting ready to wind things up and go home, they had a call from St Mungo's. Amelia had had them put on alert for anyone coming in with their left foot missing, and someone had just turned up in that condition. She grabbed a team and the foot they'd collected at the World Cup site and flooed to St Mungo's. The foot was a perfect match, and as soon as the healers said he could be moved without significant risk, they dragged him back to the Ministry. While he still couldn't give them any real Death Eaters, he did give them a few names that were higher up the food chain than the others had. Amelia had been banking on the fact that, well she was hoping that, there had been a reason that he'd been taken after he'd been stunned, and it appeared that it had paid off, to a degree anyway.

The next morning, Amelia went to town in the Minister's office, pointing out that if Barty Crouch hadn't countermanded her orders the previous night and called all of _her_ Aurors to the Ministry's tent, they might have managed to bag one of the _real_ Death Eaters who were there, perhaps even the one who had actually cast the dark mark that Crouch and the Aurors that he'd taken away from their duties had attacked and might have killed a Duke and Head of a Most Noble and Most Ancient House for. Fudge of course tried to placate her and Crouch blustered, but she shouted both of them down and told Crouch that the next time he interfered with a DMLE operation she'd have him in front of the Wizengamot answering charges of aiding the Death Eaters.

She stopped at the door to have the last word before she left. "By the way, those eleven Aurors have all been fired and will never work for the DMLE again, Dawlish included. We cannot trust anyone who ignores the orders of their line of command and follows someone else who had no authority over them on a personal vendetta. Most of them testified under Veritaserum that Dawlish ordered them, at Mister Crouch's directive, to ignore my orders and follow Mister Crouch, so he proved that he is even less trustworthy than the rest of them."

Both Fudge and Crouch tried to tell her that she couldn't do that, but she cut them off. "Minister Fudge! We cannot have the Auror who is entrusted with your safety leaving you unprotected while he runs off, following someone else who has no authority to give him any orders. Even worse, Dawlish ordered ten other Aurors to ignore my orders and abandon their duties in the middle of the incident as well! For the rest, they ignored the orders of their rightful chain of command and followed men who had no right to give them orders in a gross dereliction of duty, so they simply cannot be trusted." She stopped and looked at Crouch. "And I think you should be questioning how much you can trust the man who took away all the protection you had in the middle of an attack to support him in some vain quest for personal glory." With that she turned and left, quite happy with the way that ended.

* * *

The last weeks of the summer break went quickly, as they had a celebration at Potter Manor when Millie, Tracey, Astoria and Hagrid's results came back, Millie had all 'O's and 'E's for her Third year exams, and Tracey and Astoria had the same for their Second Year exams. Hagrid results were eight OWLs, 'O's for Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology, 'E's for Charms, Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts and Ancient Runes and 'A's for History of Magic and Astronomy. He also got an 'O' for his NEWT for Care of Magical Creatures.

They were planning on keeping Hagrid's results a secret until he actually had a need for them, because if they could present the official results unexpectedly when he was publicly challenged, those challenging him would be less likely to be able to sabotage him. The fact that Dumbledore had quietly hired him to replace the Care of Magical Creatures teacher without notifying Minerva or the Board, and under the belief that he had completed less than three years of schooling at Hogwarts, made it a good bet that he was trying to set Hagrid up for something, so his results and the fact that he was a sworn vassal of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter were being held to be used when Dumbledore or anyone else showed their hand.

Standing on Platform 9 ¾ at Kings Cross, they could see that it wasn't only the goblin guards that were keeping people away. Fudge had had the Daily Prophet making vague inferences to Sirius and Remus being involved with the casting of the Dark Mark, and hence the attacks at the World Cup, and the sheep were believing what the Prophet said as usual, so most of the students and parents on the platform were pointing at Sirius and Remus and muttering about Death Eaters. That muttering dried up whenever they looked to see who was saying that, because sheep are only brave when the wolves aren't there.

Given the unfriendly vibes that they were getting from the sheep, they commandeered two compartments together at the rear of the train and magically expanded them to take eight each, opening windows to connect them. With Harry, Nev and Nuni in one compartment, Fred, George and Indu in the other and wards over both, they would be safe enough on the train. On the way to Hogwarts, they discussed this tournament that Dumbledore and the Ministry was hiding from the staff and students, and how they thought that would effect them.

Millie went with Astoria in the boats so that Tori could experience seeing Hogwarts for the first time as they all did. Once inside the Great Hall, they stepped aside at Minerva's signal to wait for the First years to be sorted. When the firsties were done, Minerva called for Countess Biróg and Millie came forward. What the others did not know was that most of the time of what they believed to be a hat stall was the Hat complementing Millie on how strong she was, to deal with her issues the way she had, and in the end it merely asked her what house she wanted to be placed in.

Millie's immediate response was. "Not Slytherin!" but with that out of the way, she had to choose one of the other three. She opened her eyes and looked at her friends, seeing that there were half a dozen in Gryffindor, four in Ravenclaw, three in Slytherin, but only one in Hufflepuff. The support that they'd given her had saved her, and she certainly understood safety in numbers, so she said in her head. "Hufflepuff!"

The Hat understood her reasoning and thoroughly approved of her choice, so its voice rang out proudly through the hall. " _ **Hufflepuff!**_ "

Millie glanced up at the Head Table as she set the Hat on the sorting stool and saw Pomona beaming at her proudly, as she had understood and approved of the reasons she chose Hufflepuff as well. Astoria got a quick squeeze of the hand for encouragement as they passed each other, then Millie went straight to Susie, sharing a hug as she sat beside her.

Astoria was quite possibly even brighter than her older sister and she'd worked out what Millie was doing, so her conversation with the Hat was brief before it called out. " _ **Hufflepuff!**_ " in the same proud voice. She gave a whispered. "Thank you!" to the Hat before she set it down and then she ran to where Susie and Millie had moved apart to make room for her between them. That, and the way they both hugged her as she sat down told even the slowest ones in the hall that these three knew each other.

* * *

Dumbledore was looking on suspiciously, trying to work out how this would effect his plans, because it was clear that the group with Potter and the others had just increased by two unknown elements. He smiled to himself though because none of them had any idea what was about to happen. With that, he stood to address the hall.

"Welcome, welcome, we look forward to seeing great things from the students who have just joined us over the next seven years. Now I have just a few announcements before feast can begin. We have had a few changes to the staff here at Hogwarts this year. As you know, we lost our Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher before the end of last year in his heroic attempt to save one of our students…." he had to wait a few minutes for the angry muttering and calls from the students in potter's group, their guards, and even some of the staff to die down, but when it did he went on as if the interruption hadn't happened. "But I'm pleased to announce that I've managed to entice one of the top Aurors from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement into taking his place. Please join me in welcoming Professor Dawlish to the school..." The polite applause was almost drowned out by more angry muttering from Harry, Susan, Neville, Sirius, Remus and Angela, who knew quite well who John Dawlish was, as well as the fact that he'd been kicked out of the Aurors.

"We also lost our Potions Master and head of Slytherin House, Professor Slughorn, who had to move on..." Again he had to pause to let the muttering die down, but this time it was from many of the students, as well as those who had previously reacted, as the stories about what Slughorn had been helping cover up had gotten around the school very quickly. "As our older students will know, Professor Vector stepped in as the head of Slytherin House last year, and she has been confirmed in that role. Also, Professor Selwyn has agreed to take on the role of Potions Master." He paused to indicate a young man in his mid twenties who some the staff recognised from his time at Hogwarts. He had been no prodigy when he was there, so they thought that there was little chance that he'd gained his mastery in Potions. As he wasn't getting the reaction he expected, Dumbledore went on.

"And finally, Professor Kettleburn has decided to retire while he still has enough limbs to enjoy it, and I am pleased to announce that our very own Rubeus Hagrid will be taking over the Care of Magical Creatures classes, as well as continuing in his other roles." This time he got the applause he'd been looking for when he announced the other new teachers, and he looked around suspiciously.

"Also! I have an even more important announcement! I am afraid that the quidditch cup is cancelled this year..." The shouts of outrage that broke out at that were far more than the previous muttering about his unpopular statements. "Because Hogwarts will be the hosts for the return of a glorious tradition from our past, the Triwizard Tournament!" He paused for a response that didn't come, so he had to continue.

"The Triwizard Tournament is a contest between the three premier schools of magic, Beuxbatons in France, Durmstrang in Bulgaria and of course Hogwarts, right here in Britain. A champion is selected to represent each school, and they compete in three magical tasks for the opportunity for their school to hold the Triwizard Cup until the next Tournament, plus a thousand galleons prize money and eternal glory as the Triwizard Champion for the winner themselves. The Tournament was held every five years for five hundred years until it was halted two hundred years ago. There were many attempts to resurrect the Tournament over the past two hundred years, but only our own Ministry of Magic has managed to succeed where all others had failed, and the tournament will held here at Hogwarts this year. Now in the past, the Triwizard Tournament has proven to be a bit of a dangerous contest, so a new rule has been added this year to restrict the Tournament to only those students who have reached their majority before the Tournament begins."

This prompted another round of angry outbursts from the students, because all of the students under seventeen who had been getting excited by the sound of the tournament, not to mention the thousand galleons prize money and glory that they could win, felt ripped off when they were told that they wouldn't be allowed a chance to participate. That was why half of them missed much of what Dumbledore said after that.

"The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October, and I am certain that you will all make them most welcome. The other schools' headmasters and delegations will remain at Hogwarts for most of the year, until the end of the Tournament. The champions for the three schools will actually be selected by a magical artefact called the Goblet of Fire. This will be set up when the other schools arrive to allow students who wish to participate to submit their names for consideration. In accordance with the rule that will restrict contestants to those who have reached their majority, I will personally drawing an age line around the Goblet to prevent anyone under seventeen from submitting their names. The Tournament will begin with the selection of the three schools' champions after the Halloween Feast….."

* * *

Dumbledore gave up then, because most of the students were ignoring him as they discussed the tournament. He also saw that McGonagall and the other Heads of House were getting ready to jump down his throat, so he signalled for the food to appear to give himself a reprieve. He was watching Harry Potter and trying to work out why Potter hadn't seemed that surprised or interested when he'd announced the Triwizard Tournament, but he was also keeping an eye on McGonagall and the others, so whenever they finished eating and turned to him, he signalled for the next course. This made the feast progress far more quickly than ever before, something that they heard Ronald Weasley and several other walking stomachs complaining loudly about.

About three quarters of the way through the feast, Dumbledore mumbled that he'd been called away and asked Minerva to organise getting the new students to their dormitories when it was done before rushing out. If looks could have killed, the one that Minerva sent after him would have surely done it, but she shook her head in disgust and turned to the others. While Pomona and Septima knew that Tracey, Millie and Tori were all going into Corvus Tower, their prefects still needed to be told, so the two women headed down to do so before the end of the meal.

Minerva also had a First year who wanted to go home before the feast finished, because Ginny Weasley had had her brother Ron telling her that she had to work with him and help him get through properly, seeing as he'd been held back due to his abysmal performance the previous year. She told the crying Ginny that she'd do what she could to make him leave her alone and to come to her if her brother didn't leave her alone, then she asked the other teachers to separate them in class, asked the Gryffindor prefects to step in and stop him if he tried to force his sister or anyone else to help him with his assignments, and dragged Ron off to her office after the feast to tell him that if he tried to force his sister or anyone else to help him in class or with his assignments, she'd have him thrown out of Hogwarts. Minerva was dreading what Molly Weasley's response to that would be, but she was hoping that she'd take her daughter's side over her son's, so she sent a letter to the Weasleys explaining what Ginny had come to her about and what she did about it.

When everyone but the walking stomachs had had their fill, Minerva signalled for the plates to be cleared, asked the prefects to take the First years to their dormitories and took Mr Weasley off to tell him how things were going to go this year.

* * *

The girls' rooms were shuffled a little in Corvus Tower, as Daphne and Tori took one pair of bedrooms together and Millie and Tracey took another, while Hermione and Luna, Susie and Padma and Angie and Katie kept their arrangements. Hogwarts had added extra doors between Harry's room and Daphne and Millie's rooms to make it easier for the girls to come to him when they had nightmares, as he was good at calming them down and making them feel better.

After they'd gone to their rooms to change into something more comfortable, they went back to the common room to discuss what they thought Dumbledore was up to with the tournament, and bringing in John Dawlish to teach Defence.

Angela and most of the others had seen Dumbledore surreptitiously watching Harry when he was announcing the tournament, and after as well, so it was pretty much a given that the tournament was meant to be some sort of trap for Harry, they just had to find out what exactly the trap was. None of them were happy that Dumbledore had hired John Dawlish as soon as Amelia fired him from the DMLE either. Amelia had almost deafened Angela when she ducked out of the Great Hall to mirror call her and tell her that Dawlish was teaching at Hogwarts, but aside from the fact that Dumbledore was supposed to run any potential staff by the Hogwarts Board before hiring them, there wasn't much they could do about that. For that matter, Dawlish should at least be more qualified for the Defence role than Quirrell or Lockhart had been.

Sirius and Remus were also itching for a fight, because the curses that Dawlish had been hurting at them, Bill and Charlie in that clearing in the trees at the World Cup had been meant to kill them. Amelia hadn't been able to do anything about that either, because they'd pushed through the laws to allow Aurors to use deadly force in response to Death Eaters who were attacking them, and officially they had believed that Sirius, Remus, Bill and Charlie were Death Eaters when they found them in the clearing so the arguments made were that he had thought that they were throwing curses at him and the Aurors because he hadn't realised that the curses were coming from the Aurors on the other side, but they were certain that he knew who they were and was trying to drop them so that they could lay the blame for the Death Eater attack on them.

All they really got out of their discussion was that this was going to be another year where they had to keep looking over their shoulders, but that had pretty much been a given anyway.


	8. Pig In A Poke And Vice Versa

**PaviCalli,** **as far as** **brilliance** **goes, Nicholas Flamel and Merlin didn't attend Hogwarts, and when have Dumbledore and Riddle actually shown any brilliance? They have high opinions of themselves and each other, but I haven't seen any evidence of that. Look at how many times in the original stories that Hermione worked out things that Dumbledore apparently couldn't. With regard to the trial, that was the point, that's how it is in this world, there are no checks and balances so whatever gets through the Wizengamot is made law because they don't have the underpinnings and structure of law that exist in the** _ **real**_ **world. If you have any doubts about that, look at the way that it was made illegal to use** **Veritaserum** **to protect those who paid them off (probably in the middle of their trials) and the 'Education** **al** **Decrees' that they issued at the drop of a hat to force through whatever they wanted** **and make their actions legal** **.**

 **N** **B: If anyone likes Molly (I'm sure someone does, but I can't imagine why), you won't like this chapter.** **And yes, I know that I've used these fathers before, but they fit the personalities IMHO.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.**

Minerva wasn't too surprised when Ronald Weasley got a howler from his mother at breakfast the morning after the sorting feast, but the wording had a number of people in the hall looking at each other in suspicion. " _ **Ronald Bilius Weasley! You will not interfere with your sister taking her proper place there, and if you do anything, anything at all, to interfere with her achieving the task she is there to complete, I will make sure that you are thrown out of the family! You better not fail to do your part in this either! If you ruin her chances of success because you didn't do your part, that will get you thrown out of the family as well!**_ " That sounded rather like Molly was planning to make her daughter do something to pull off some plan against someone at Hogwarts, and they all knew who was the richest person at Hogwarts, Henry James Potter!

Seeing Ginny Weasley running out of the Great Hall in tears just after the howler finished, and Percy, Fred and George Weasley following her only reinforced their belief, and any doubts were dashed when the four students arrived at Minerva's office, asking to talk to her. She stopped them five minutes into their story and called for Arthur and Amelia, because she'd heard enough to know that it was even more serious than they'd feared.

Minerva sent the boys off to class and left Arthur and Amelia to talk to Ginny. Throughout the day, they called in Aurors to test the potions in Ginny's trunk that she'd been told to give to Harry and take herself, along with the ones that they found in Ron's trunk, as she said they would. With Arthur's permission and in his presence, they also questioned Ginny (and Ron when he was brought in) under Veritaserum and collected their memories of relevant discussions with their mother. Suspicions about their behaviour had Arthur, Ginny and Ron sent to St Mungo's to be tested for compulsions, memory charms and potions.

Arthur showed long term exposure to illegal and dangerous love and loyalty potions, but he was still clear of compulsions and memory charms since they had been removed last Christmas. They started a program to flush the potions from his body, but it would take some time as he'd been fed potions so long that they had gotten into every part of his body. Ginny showed some minor compulsions and memory charms, and also some preparatory potions, the charms were removed and the potions were flushed from her system. Ron showed the nothing but the minor memory charms they'd found before, plus the one that Angela had put on him to cover up the fact that he'd exposed the earlier plot to Arthur and Percy. They added another memory charm to Ron, much like they did to cover up that they'd found out about Molly and Dumbledore's original plan and sent him back to Hogwarts. The potions they tested proved to be love, lust and fertility potions for Harry and Ginny that were keyed to each other, and love and lust potions for Hermione that were keyed to Ron, as apparently Molly believed that if Hermione was out of the way, Ginny would have a clear run at Harry.

There was another thing they tested Ginny and Ron for while they were at St Mungo's because of something that Molly had let slip in a memory of Ginny's. Of all the blows that Arthur received through this business, they fact that neither Ginny nor Ron were his children was the worst. While Arthur was trying to deal with this, they quietly brought Percy and the twins in as well, and the results from them had Bill and Charlie called into be tested.

Finding out that three of his seven children were the progeny of three other men almost broke Arthur, and exposed his wife as the ambitious whore that she was because Percival Weasley was the son of Bartemius Crouch, Ronald Weasley was the son of Cornelius Fudge and Ginevra Weasley was the daughter of Rufus Scrimgeour. Apparently, whenever Arthur's position at the Ministry failed to bring in the money to let her live in the style that she believed she deserved, his wife had slept with whoever she thought had enough influence to get him a promotion. It was uncertain whether she'd smartened up enough to use contraceptive charms after Ginny or she'd just lost the appeal to entice men into bed, but the fact that she'd let herself go and Arthur hadn't had a promotion in years implied the latter.

Percy and Ginny's tearful declarations that even if he cast them out, he'd always be their father had Arthur in tears, and he promised them that he'd never cast them out and they were his children, no matter who's blood ran in their veins. It was a different matter with Ron when it came out in Molly's trial for attempting to illegally potion the Heads of two Most Noble and Most Ancient, two Noble and Most Ancient, and two Most Ancient Houses, attempted line theft for those houses and plans to potion and use two of her children for that purpose. Not to mention attempting to force her eleven year old daughter into pregnancy and marriage to the twelve year old Duke Potter get her hands on the Potter fortune and using potions to trap her husband while they were still at Hogwarts and keeping up the potions ever since to keep him under control.

When the fact that Ron wasn't Arthur's son by blood came out in the trial, he publicly rejected Arthur with hurtful comments about how pathetic he was and said that he wanted to go to his real father. With the importance on blood in Magical Britain, Fudge knew that it would be political suicide to reject him once the evidence proving Ron to be his progeny had been presented in the court, so he made a show of formally accepting him as his son then and there when the evidence was accepted and his name was struck from the Weasley family. Arthur had tears in his eyes over his erstwhile son's comments, but when Percy and Ginny were struck from the Weasley Family when their parentage was confirmed, he stood to ask that he be allowed to adopt them.

Arthur looked terribly hurt when Ginny jumped up and interrupted him by shouting "No!" when he was stating that he wanted to adopt her as Ginevra Molly Weasley, so she rushed to explain. "I want to be your daughter Dad but I don't want _her_ name! What about Cedrella, for Grandma?" The loving smile he gave her at that remained on his face as he faced forward again and asked to adopt her as Ginevra Cedrella Weasley. Ginny and Percy's adoptions into the Weasley family and Ron's acceptance into the Fudge family were officially recorded then and there, but Arthur pointed out that the name Bilius had been given to Ronald as a Weasley family name (Arthur's Uncle, the previous Head of the House of Weasley who'd died earlier that year actually), so it wouldn't be appropriate for him as a Fudge, Ron therefore became Ronald Cornelius Fudge.

When Molly was being sentenced to Azkaban, Arthur stood as the Head of the Noble House of Weasley and called for the immediate dissolution of their marriage, on the grounds that she had no right to the Weasley name due to her numerous crimes against his family. Then, when that was granted, Charlie stood as the Head of the Noble House of Prewett and banished her from the Prewett family for bringing shame on the family, so she was sentenced as Molly No-Name.

Molly burnt her last bridge when Ron, the only one of her children who wanted to have anything to do with her at that point, went to her in tears and she said. "Get away from me boy! I only had you to get Arthur into a better position and give us a better life. You've always been the biggest disappointment of any of the children I've had!"

That made Ron turn to Arthur in tears. "Dad….." but Arthur cut him off, as the boy's previous comments had struck deep enough to harden even the warm, loving heart of the ever forgiving Arthur Weasley. He pointed at Fudge. "That's your father, or have you forgotten already Mister Fudge?" and with that, he turned and left the court with his arms around Percy and Ginny.

They all went back to Potter Manor after that, to give the Weasleys a chance to try and pull themselves together and work out what they wanted to do. One thing the Weasleys agreed on was that the Burrow held too many memories of Molly and Ron, so it had to go. Arthur allowed himself to be talked into moving into Potter Manor until he found a suitable new home for the Weasley Family and they cleaned out the Burrow to sell it. Ron's things were sent to the Fudge residence and Molly's were sent to government storage until she was released, if she ever was.

Another thing they did while they were sorting the details out, primarily to protect Ginny but it was for the rest of them as well, was to have Arthur and Charlie to swear homage and allegiance to Harry, thereby making the Noble Houses of Weasley and Prewett vassals of The Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter. This gave the House of Potter the right, and duty, to step in if anything threatened Ginny, or the rest of the family. Openly declaring this in the next Wizengamot session ensured that anyone who understood the Noble House rules knew that the Houses of Weasley and Prewett were now under the protection of the most powerful House in Magical Britain.

* * *

This was the biggest drama in the two months before the delegations from other schools arrived for the tournament. Ron became an insufferable, self important prat overnight after he discovered that he was actually the son of the Minister for Magic, and his constant cries of. "When my father hears about this.." were quickly filtered out as annoying background noise by everyone. He was owling his father daily to demand that he get him out of the constant detentions that his behaviour got him into, but never got an answer.

As they had expected, Dawlish felt _wrong_ , and he wasn't much of a teacher, but the students still managed to learn more in his class than they had from the two (three if you counted Dumbledore) that they'd had teaching Defence the previous year. Selwyn didn't offer too many surprises either, he was a mediocre teacher with limited ability as a Potions Master and the upper years were struggling to learn the more complex potions from him. Many of the boys and some of the girls were blaming that girl who'd been being abused for their Potions Master being arrested and taken away, but some of the boys and the majority of the girls were coming back with questions about whether they'd be saying that if _they_ were the ones who had been abused. They also forgot their confusion about why no-one could remember who the girl was straight away and went on to other things, as Millie's previous existence had been eradicated for everyone but the family.

Hagrid was enthusiastic and knew more about Magical Creatures than Kettleburn had, but many of the students were intimidated by him, and the creatures that he taught them about to boot. The family tried to get it through to him that the creatures he brought in were a little advanced for most of the students, but he had trouble getting his head around that.

They kept up the charade that he was going off for half a day, or sometimes a whole day, most weekends to help his Great Aunt, while he was actually working on his mastery in Care of Magical Creatures. He was also studying for his NEWTs in the rest of his subjects, and working on the physical training that they started after they had the bindings on him removed last Christmas.

Like most of them, Hagrid had hated the physical training at first, but he was given the same potions that Severus had created for Millie, and he quickly trimmed down as he became stronger and more agile. He started out training with the goblins, but as he became stronger, faster and more accomplished with the weapons, they added security trolls to challenge him more, and over the summer break, he'd graduated to working with the far more capable Olog-hai that the Goblin Nation maintained for serious situations.

The goblins hired out their security trolls to the wizarding kind, but the Olog-hai were a secret that was kept to the Goblin Nation, they were strong, agile, fierce, and cunning, far more intelligent than other trolls, and at ten to twelve feet high, most of them were bigger and stronger than Hagrid. Letting him train with their secret weapons was a mark of trust that the Goblin Nation had in the family, but this training was bringing Hagrid forward faster than he had come before. The bulky clothes that Hagrid still wore normally hid the changes he'd made to his body over the past nine or ten months, but when he was dressed for training he was an impressive sight, all the more so given the fact that he was nearly twice the height and size of most men.

* * *

In the last week of October, Dumbledore announced that the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang delegations would be arriving the day before Halloween, and the students of Hogwarts were expected to be there to welcome them when they did. That was why most of the Hogwarts students were standing outside, shivering in the cold wind as the sun started to go down, and muttering about silly old gits and stupid foreigners.

One of the seekers' sharp eyes caught something above the horizon and called out. "What's that?"

A few minutes later, most of them could see it and six or seven minutes after that the enormous blue carriage was being pulled by a dozen appropriately large golden flying horses in an arc around the castle as it came in to land. On the ground, the carriage was the size of a small building, and that was before the expected magical expansion inside. The gold trimmed powder blue behemoth pulled up right outside the main entrance of Hogwarts, they couldn't have shouted 'look at me!' any louder without flashing lights and fireworks.

A staircase extended to the ground as the impressively large door opened in the side of the carriage, but the first figure that alighted from the carriage provided the justification for the size of the door, as it was tall as Hagrid, and not that much narrower. This was the Headmistress of Beauxbatons, Madame Olympe Maxime. Madame Maxime exchanged pleasantries with Dumbledore while watching her students make their entrance with the appropriate pomp and ceremony, but she wasn't pleased when the girls especially ruined the effect by shivering and rubbing their arms in the cold because while their robes may have been ever so stylish and appropriate in the South of France, they weren't at all suitable up here in the Scottish Highlands with snow on the ground.

She certainly didn't appreciate it when her star pupil, Fleur Delacour, the eldest daughter of the Deputy Minister of Magic for France, suddenly exclaimed in excitement and ran off to greet a group of the Hogwarts students with hugs and kisses. Madame Maxime was miffed enough to hiss at her to get back to the others, and the exasperated smile Fleur flashed at the girls she was with belied the sincerity of the contrite apology she gave, which in turn led to the Headmistress getting a little snarky with Dumbledore about his assurances that his gamekeeper would be able to handle her team of mighty abraxans.

When she caught sight of Hagrid, she begrudgingly admitted (to herself only, of course) that he looked like he probably could handle them OK, and let it go with a parting shot about her horses only drinking single malt whiskey. She wanted to respond to the crack she heard from one of the Hogwarts students. "Bloody good thing we're in Scotland then, innit?" and the snickering that broke out at that, but she decided to try to get out of the situation with at least a little of her dignity intact, so she merely waved her wand at the carriage to retract the staircase and led her students into Hogwarts without a word.

The Hogwarts students were about to ask if they could go inside as well, but they were interrupted by someone calling out. "What's that out in the lake?"

When they all turned around, a mast was rapidly rising out of the water. The ship actually popped up so quickly that the hull made a big splash as it slapped down on the surface. After bobbing up and down for about a minute, it began moving as it was propelled magically to the shore directly in front of the castle, dropping anchors fore and aft before a gangway extended out to the shore. The first one to alight was a tall, slender man in a silver fur coat. Hermione and Daphne grabbed Harry's hands as he growled, because they also recognised him as Karkaroff, the supposedly _ex_ -Death Eater Headmaster of Durmstrang. The students who followed him off the ship looked huge in the bulky fur coats they wore, and the girls couldn't work out what Harry was chuckling about until they realised that at least three or four of the large figures were actually girls. They tried to stifle their giggles as they caught on, but they needn't have worried as none of the Durmstrang delegation paid any attention to the Hogwarts students as they haughtily stalked past them and into the castle.

Dumbledore turned to tell the Hogwarts students who were following on the Durmstrang students' heels to wait until after their guests were inside and settled before they came into the castle, but swallowed his words when he caught the looks Harry and his group were giving him. Even with his need to present the image that he was the master of everything at Hogwarts, he didn't want to think about what might happen if he tried to make these students wait outside in the cold when everyone else was inside.

When they got inside, they saw that the Durmstrang students had chosen (or been told) to sit at the Slytherin tables, while the Beauxbatons students were at the Ravenclaw tables. Fleur cast a look at Harry and the others when they sat down at the end of the table with a smile and a grimace and they smiled back sympathetically, as they understood that the grimace was because she had to sit with her school mates, who obviously didn't want to have anything to do with her.

Looking up at the High Table, they saw that Minerva and the rest of the Hogwarts staff had been pushed off towards the ends of the table to make room for the two extras chairs on either side of Dumbledore's throne. Seeing the pompous fool trying to lord it over everyone from that Merlin be damned throne prompted Angela to make a mental note to discuss the option of selling these fripperies off to try and put something back into Hogwarts' coffers with the Board. She snorted to herself that, because as the family controlled the Board, it was a foregone conclusion that the old fool would be losing his toys and trappings. As Madame Maxime and Karkaroff were sitting in the seats to Dumbledore's left, they wondered who the other two seats were for.

Dumbledore kept his welcoming speech surprisingly short (which shocked everyone who was expecting him to be making the most of the new audience) and then simply announced that the tournament would begin at the end of the feast, and with that, the food appeared. The elves had obviously been told to cater for their guests, because the Slytherin table had English and Bulgarian food, and the Ravenclaw table had English and French food. The Beauxbatons students were being quite obvious with the way they were keeping Fleur away from the French food and as she looked away with a tear in her eye, Harry caught her attention and signalled for her to come and join them. She looked back at the bitches from her school, nodded decisively and stood to head down to join her friends.

At least two of the people watching the group at the end of the Ravenclaw table from the High Table weren't happy about what they were seeing. Madame Maxime wasn't comfortable with her best hope for this tournament being so obviously close to a group of Hogwarts students, and Dumbledore wasn't happy that the Potter brat was expanding his circle to include visiting students. How was he going to separate Potter from the people who supported him if the Merlin be damned brat kept adding to those people? Karkaroff noted Dumbledore and Maxime's focus on the group at the end of the table and examined the students there to see who was the likely competition for Krum, it was obvious who Maxime was watching, but who was Dumbledore watching, that boy? It couldn't be, he wasn't old enough to compete in the tournament, he was just a boy.

Harry and the others pretended not to notice the attention from the High Table as they caught up with Fleur. The girls were more enthralled in Fleur's stories about her letters with Charlie than Harry was, so he didn't miss Angela's subtle signal and nod to the High Table, where he saw that Barty Crouch, who he knew of from his activities at the World Cup, and another fat, slovenly buffoon who also had the air of Ministry had taken the last two seats beside Dumbledore. Harry looked back at Angela and she nodded to say that they were as expected, so he decided to wait and see what came out, turning to look for Percy and see whether his blood father being here was effecting him. Percy caught his look and shook his head to say that it wasn't bothering him, and gave him a grateful nod for his concern as well.

* * *

When the tables had been cleared, Dumbledore stood again and called for attention "The moment has come, the Triwizard Tournament is about to start! I would like to explain the rules before we bring out the Goblet of Fire, and also clarify the changes made this year..."

"But first, I would like to introduce those who will be presiding over the tournament. We have our own head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, Mister Bartemius Crouch, and the head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, Mister Ludo Bagman, who have worked tirelessly for much of this year to have this legendary event reinstated and hosted here at Hogwarts. Madame Maxime, as the Headmistress of the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic in France, Professor Karkaroff, as the Headmaster of the Durmstrang Institute for Magical Learning in Bulgaria, and myself, as the Headmaster of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry here in Britain." He paused for a dramatic moment.

"Madame Maxime and Professor Karkaroff will be joining Mister Crouch, Mister Bagman and myself on the judges' panel for the tournament tasks. The three tasks that the champions will face this year have been set by Mister Crouch and Mister Bagman, and these tasks will be spaced out through the school year. The tournament tasks will test the champions' magical prowess, daring, powers of deduction and ability to cope with the dangers of the challenge. As you know, three champions will be competing in the tournament, one from each of the participating schools. Their scores from the first two tasks will determine the starting order for the third and final task, and whoever wins the third task will win the Triwizard Cup. As I informed my own students at the start of the year, the selection of the champions will be done by the Goblet of Fire…. Mister Filch, could you bring out the Goblet please?"

They had to stifle their laughter as Filch shuffled out proudly in what must have been his best robes. He placed a jewel encrusted chest on the table and struck a pose, but he looked like nothing more than a scarecrow in what he was wearing.

Dumbledore opened the chest and carefully lifted a large cup from it, holding it up for all to see. It was a rather plain wooden cup, but what made it an impressive sight were the dancing blue-white flames that flared up as Dumbledore raised it, before settling down to dance just above the rim. Dumbledore solemnly stepped to a pedestal that had been placed to one side of the High Table and set the Goblet of Fire atop it with considerable pomp and ceremony before he turned to face the students and continued.

"Anyone wishing to submit themselves to compete as a champion for their school must write their name and school clearly on a piece of parchment, seal it with their blood, and then drop it into the Goblet of Fire. The Goblet of Fire will sit here in the Great Hall for the next twenty four hours to allow all interested to submit themselves for consideration. Tomorrow night, after the Halloween Feast, the Goblet of Fire will issue the names of the three champions who have been deemed worthy of representing their schools. As I have advised Hogwarts' students, I have placed protections around the Goblet to prevent anyone under seventeen from submitting their names, because only those who have reached their majority may compete in this the tournament."

He struck a dramatic pose as his gaze to sweep across the students in the hall. "Finally, I must impress upon any of you wishing to compete that this tournament is not something to be entered into lightly. Once the champions have been selected by the Goblet of Fire, they must see the tournament through to the end. By putting your name into the Goblet of Fire, you have agreed that you will be entered into a magically binding contract if you are subsequently selected as a champion. Please consider this carefully before you put your name into the Goblet, this tournament is no lark, it is a deadly serious matter. With that, I believe that it is time for bed. I wish you all a good night."

* * *

Angelina called for Tally and had her bring one of her winter day robes for Fleur so that she didn't freeze on the trek back out to the Beauxbatons carriage near Hagrid's cottage (which was of course something else for the rest of the Beauxbatons bitches to hate Fleur for because it was colder than it had been when they arrived and they _did_ freeze). With that, they said good night to Fleur and headed back to Corvus Tower. They spent a while talking about the tournament in their common room because the twins, and Neville surprisingly enough, still wished that they could enter to prove something to themselves. Harry and the others let Angela and the girls remind them about what Fleur's father had said about the tournament being cancelled because too many contestants were maimed and killed every year that it had been run, and they eventually conceded that only a fool would _want_ to be part of that.

Sadly, it was clear that the rest of the Hogwarts students had no knowledge of the tournament's bloody past and no-one to talk them out of their stupid ideas, because whenever one of the older students put their name in the Goblet, the rest of the students exploded in a frenzy of cheering and hero worship. This in turn prompted more than a few of the younger students to convince themselves that they _deserved_ their chance at the winner's purse and the 'eternal glory' that Dumbledore was trying to peddle, so there were a number of students who were sent to Madam Pomfrey throughout the day when the measures set up by Dumbledore to reject under age students did so violently.

Professor McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and Vector all complained to Dumbledore about this, insisting that he should lock the Goblet of Fire away and only allow students who were of age access to put their names into it. While Madam Maxime agreed with the heads of house on the logic of this, Dumbledore insisted that the Goblet could not be moved until it had issued the names of the Champions, and he refused to allow a guard to be set on the Goblet, saying that that would cause problems, as it would be taken as an insult to the Noble families of the students. Minerva was tempted to tell him that he didn't know enough about the Noble Houses to make that statement, but gave it up as a waste of time, the old fool was pointedly ignoring his Deputy Headmistress, all four Heads of the Hogwarts School Houses and another Headmistress, so he obviously wasn't going to listen to any arguments.

Madam Pomfrey managed to heal the bodies, if not the pride, of the rejected students well enough for them (and her) to attend the Halloween Feast. It was obvious from the looks that Fleur gave Harry and the others that she'd rather be sitting with her friends again, but she'd been ordered by Madame Maxime to remain with the rest of the Beauxbatons delegation.

* * *

As the feast drew to a close and the plates and dishes were cleared away, the excitement grew in the hall, and it was a relief when Dumbledore finally stood to address the hall. Madame Maxime and Professor Karkaroff were looking as nervous as their students, while Bagman was smiling and winking at anyone who looked at him, hamming it up. Crouch just looked angry and bored, as if he was affronted that he had to waste his time on something like this.

When he was sure he had everyone's attention, Dumbledore spoke. "The Goblet is about to start issuing its selections for the champions. When the champions names are called, I ask that they come to the High Table, pay their respects to the judges, and then proceed through the door to my left into the chamber where they will receive their first instructions for the tournament when all the champions have been selected."

"Please join me in applauding all who have been brave enough to enter their names to participate in the tournament, because even though only three may be selected as their schools' champions, all who have come forward have shown remarkable courage!"

There was a smattering of polite applause and then the flames in the goblet turned red and grew taller, so Dumbledore scurried quickly to where it was sitting atop the pedestal. Just after he reached it, the flames suddenly flared up and a piece of parchment flew out.

Dumbledore caught it and pinched out the glowing embers along the edges, holding it out at arm's length to read the name written on it as the flames behind him returned to blue-white he called out. "Viktor Krum is the champion for Durmstrang!"

The hall erupted with the cheering, and the quidditch fans of Hogwarts and Beauxbatons were cheering just as loudly as the Durmstrang delegation were. Krum stood and marched to the High Table, stiffly bowing to the triumphantly beaming Karkaroff and the other judges as required before turning and marching past Dumbledore to the door into the chamber. The students quietened in anticipation as the flames turned red again.

Dumbledore caught the parchment that was spat out of the goblet and once again held it arm's length to read it. "Fleur Delacour is the champion for Beauxbatons!" This time the cheering would at best be described as 'polite', and it wasn't lost to Fleur or anyone else that the Nobles Group were more enthusiastic than her fellow Beauxbatons students, something that got them a grateful smile from her as she stood and gracefully glided to the High Table, curtsying to a proud Madame Maxime and the other judges before proceeding to the door into the chamber, though she paused to acknowledge Dumbledore with a curtsy as she passed him.

It wasn't a long wait before the goblet's flames changed to red again, and what was called out this time was "Cedric Diggory is the champion for Hogwarts!" The applause for Cedric was the loudest yet, because while the other houses were disappointed that the representatives of their houses hadn't been the ones who were named as Hogwarts' champion, the Hufflepuff prefect was well liked in Hogwarts. Cedric had a wide grin and his parade and bow to the High Table was far less regimented and more joyous than Krum's had been. Like Fleur, he paused and bowed to Dumbledore as he passed him on the way to the chamber.

As Cedric was the third champion, Madame Maxime, Karkaroff, Bagman and Crouch stood and proceeded to the door of the chamber, but just before they reached it they froze, because the flames in the goblet had turned red and flared up again. They crowded around when Dumbledore caught the parchment that the goblet spat out, struggling to read this new name.

There was no doubt that it was pure theatrics when Dumbledore started calling out "Harry Potter? Where is Harry Potter?" as everyone knew where Harry always sat with Hermione, Luna and Padma, so Angela matched Dumbledore's theatrics with her own, turning to the wall behind her and loudly calling out "Reveal Mirror!" to cancel the notice-me-not and disillusion charms cast over the mirror that had been placed up on the wall where it had a clear view of the Goblet of Fire with a sticking charm before calling "Accio Mirror!" loud enough for many to hear. Once she had the mirror in her hand, Sirius touched Harry on the shoulder and the three of them proceeded with Alice to where Dumbledore was standing.

There was a wave of muttering going around the hall that seemed mainly focussed on 'Cheat!', and none of them were surprised that the loudest voice they heard was Ron Fudge's. Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, Babbage and Vector, along with Madam Pomfrey, Hagrid and Dawlish, had all moved to join the group at the door when Harry's name was called. It was obvious that Dumbledore wanted to prevent Angela, Alice and Sirius from entering with Harry, but he was bright enough to read the look in Angela's eye that said that he'd die before they let Harry go in there without them, so they all filed in and closed the door behind them.

When Harry walked in, Fleur blurted out " 'arry, what are you doing here?" Crouch responded to that, snarling. "The boy's a damned cheat! He somehow put his name into the goblet to get into the tournament!"

Krum, Karkaroff and Madame Maxime looked outraged at this, but Bagman for some reason looked delighted and Fleur was horrified. "Non! He is too young! It is too dangerous!"

Angela ignored Fleur and the others as she responded to Crouch. "I'd be very careful with your accusations Mister Crouch! We will prove that Duke Potter had nothing to do with his name being entered into the Goblet for this tournament!"

"You can't talk to the Head of a major department of the Ministry of Magic like that! Dumbledore, get rid of her and those others that came in with the cheat, they have no business being here!…"

He shut up very quickly when Angela shoved her senior Auror's badge right in his face, and Sirius and Alice had their's ready to shove in there the moment that Angela made room. In the sudden silence Angela was heard by everyone in the room.

"As the senior Auror present, I am in charge of the investigation into the criminal actions and intent of whoever it was who entered Duke Potter into this tournament against his will until the Director of the DMLE allocates someone else to take over the investigation from me! And Mister Crouch, I'll be happy to address your other comments as the Regent of two Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses and five Noble and Most Ancient Houses the next time you're in front of the Wizengamot, don't cross me old man!"

She turned to Dumbledore and put her hand out. "Headmaster, I'll see that parchment please!" Dumbledore complied reluctantly but was arguing about what she'd said. "What do you mean, Senior Auror? You're not an Auror, you're part of Potter's staff!"

She answered him dismissively as she was examining the parchment. "Yes, but the Director of the DMLE is very concerned about the level of danger that we've been uncovering to the students here at Hogwarts and reinstated my active status, swore in Duke Black, Lord Lupin and Lord Snape and assigned Lady Longbottom to my team so that there would be authorised Aurors here to give _some_ protection to the students…"

Dumbledore started shouting. "She has no right to plant spies in my school, I won't allow it…"

At that point, Harry cut him off. "I thought that this had already been made clear to you? How are you still labouring under the delusion that this is _your_ school old man?"

He raised his voice. "Distinguished ghosts of Hogwarts, attend me please!"

Over the next few minutes, Sir Nicholas, the Grey Lady, the Fat Friar and the Bloody Baron wafted through the walls. The other house ghosts deferred to the Grey Lady, as the daughter of one of the school's founders. "You called on us my Lord?"

Harry bowed to her. "Thank you my lady, we have a question which I wish to request the direction of Hogwarts on, if you would be so kind."

The Grey Lady graciously nodded for him to continue. "Headmaster Dumbledore is making declarations as to what he will and will not allow in _his_ school, and quite aside from the fact that he has no legal authority to make these declarations, I would like the ruling of Hogwarts herself as to who presently at Hogwarts has the right to make these claims."

The Grey Lady gave a tinkling laugh at that, which was joined by the other three house ghosts' laughs. "My Lord, you already know this! It is only the true heirs of the founders of Hogwarts, that is you and Lords Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, who Hogwarts recognises as having any valid authority over her my Lord!"

There was a round of "Here, here!" and "Quite rightly so!" and "Absolutely!" from the other ghosts, and when Dumbledore tried to argue, he suddenly found himself sharing space with the angry Bloody Baron's ghost. The others in the room couldn't hear what the Baron whispered to him, but Dumbledore went white, terrified at the prospect of whatever the Baron was saying, though part of it could well have been the unnatural freezing sensation that occurs when a ghost pushes itself into your body. Whatever the reason, Dumbledore mumbled something like an apology and scurried off into a corner of the room as Angela spoke.

"Whoever did this was thought that they were being clever, because apparently Duke Potter is representing the Corvus School of Magic."

They did not note Dawlish's surprised expression at that because Maxime, Karkaroff, Crouch and Bagman were all demanding to know what this Corvus School was because they'd never heard of it.

Angela looked at Dumbledore as she responded. "That's because there _is_ no Corvus School of Magic. Hogwarts named the tower that she created to house Duke Potter and his cousins when they started here Corvus House, in honour of the original raven standard of Duke Potter's line. Duke Potter's ancestor was involved in the creation of Hogwarts and she remembered him. Duke Potter and the rest of his group use private tutors for most subjects, even though they are officially Hogwarts students because they are enrolled here, so someone either thought that they were being clever when they used the name Corvus School, or they believed that they would be able to get rid of the evidence before anyone else saw it."

She looked away from Dumbledore and waved the parchment in the air before she handed it to Professor McGonagall. "This is not Duke Potter's handwriting, as I have told you, there is no Corvus School and I can show that Duke Potter went nowhere near the Goblet of Fire in the time it's been here. As we have proof that Duke Potter did not enter himself into this tournament, what can be done to withdraw him from it?"

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "If the blood that was used to seal his entry to the tournament is in fact Mister Potter's, it does not matter who entered him, he is magically bound by the entry and therefore cannot withdraw from the tournament without losing his magic…."

Angela and the others wanted to slap the patronising look off of his face when he said that, but Dumbledore was cut off by the shouts of Maxime and Karkaroff, because they had never been told about that element of the conditions that would also apply to their students entering the tournament. They had been told that it was magically binding, but they had been given the impression that that had meant that the champions would be compelled not to withdraw, not that they'd lose their magic if they did.

Fleur went white when she heard about the risk of losing her magic, because a veela cannot live without her magic. Krum was upset about it as well, because while he did not have death hanging over his head at the loss of his magic like Fleur, being the youngest seeker on any international team had made him a global celebrity and he stood to make a fortune out of that, but he would lose all of that without his magic.

By then the Hogwarts teachers who had taught Harry had all confirmed that it was not his handwriting on the parchment, and they handed it to Madam Pomfrey to determine whether it was in fact his blood. Madam Pomfrey was almost in tears when she confirmed that it was indeed Harry's blood on the parchment that had entered him, so he was bound by the terms of the magical contract. The looks that many in the room, living and ghost alike, were shooting at Dumbledore said that he would pay if he was proven to be behind this, for the other champions as well as Harry. As Dumbledore knew that he _was_ responsible for both covering up true nature of the tournaments' magical contracts and the entry that had locked Harry into the tournament, he was having considerable difficulty in maintaining a calm facade.

Because they were all glaring at Dumbledore, they once again missed Dawlish's surprised expression, because this was the second proof that this wasn't the entry that he'd had put into the Goblet for Potter. He was looking at Dumbledore as well, but his look was more calculating than angry like the others, because he knew that the old fool had to have been behind the entry which actually resulted in Potter being chosen as a champion, but he couldn't for the life of him understand why he'd do that.

* * *

Angela called Amelia about this and Amelia flooed straight to Hogwarts with Kingsley and a team of Aurors. Because he was still accusing Harry of cheating, an angry Barty Crouch was forced to sit down with Kingsley in front of the mirror that had been stuck up on the wall to record everything that happened around the Goblet of Fire from when Dumbledore set it atop the pedestal to when Angela publicly took the mirror down from the wall where she'd stuck it to record who put things into the goblet, to see the proof of whether Harry had entered himself or not. They were able to scan through the recording much faster than in real time, because every time a valid entry had been accepted by the goblet, the flames had turned red and flared up, much like they did when it was spitting out the champions' names, so whenever they saw that happen they would stop the playback, go back and watch the event carefully.

Maxime and Karkaroff were also looking over their shoulders because they weren't at all happy about the way they'd been misled about the tournament and they had no doubt that whoever it was who had entered Harry into the tournament was almost certainly behind any other tampering of the conditions for the tournament. Kingsley was recording the names of every student who's entry had been accepted by the goblet as they went.

While they were doing that, wizards that Amelia brought with her were examining the Goblet, but as the school details had been entered in a similar manner to the students' names, there was no magical signature to prove who had added the Corvus School of Magic. In fact there was no evidence that the enchantments had been altered since it had been created over seven hundred years before. They were all certain that Dumbledore had entered Harry, but as the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, he was still too powerful to be able to force him to submit to questioning under Veritaserum.

When they got to the end of the recording without Harry showing up once, Crouch claimed that he must have been using a cloak of invisibility or something, until Kingsley pointed out, speaking to him as if he was a slow child, that even if Harry had been under a cloak of invisibility, the flames in the goblet would have flared up and changed colour if an entry had been accepted. The only things they saw which appeared out of the ordinary was that when Cedric and one of the Durmstrang students dropped their entries into the goblet, the flames had flared up much higher than they did when anyone else dropped their entries in, but they couldn't see or think of any reason for that and when asked, Cedric said that he'd just dropped his name in like everyone else. Cedric willingly agreed to being probed by Amelia's Aurors on this, and his memory showed exactly what they had seen on the recording.

Dumbledore tried to regain control of the situation.

"We may never know exactly what has happened here." he said, speaking to everyone gathered in the room. "It seems to me however that we have no choice but to accept it and continue. Both Cedric and Harry have been chosen to compete in the Tournament. Therefore, they must do this. . ."

"But 'eadmaster….."

"My dear Madame Maxime, if you have a viable alternative, I would be delighted to hear it, for I do not."

Dumbledore waited, but Madame Maxime did not say a word, she just stood there and glared at him. She wasn't the only one either. Angela, Sirius, Alice, Amelia and the Hogwarts staff looked furious and Karkaroff was outraged, but for some reason Bagman looked rather excited, idiot that he was.

Something suddenly clicked with Angela, and she decided to take a shot at it. "Headmaster Dumbledore, I was under the impression that, under the rules for this year's tournament, the students must be adults to participate?"

Dumbledore looked at her, confused. "Yes, that's right, all champions must be adults."

Angela looked at Crouch. "Do you agree with this Mister Crouch?"

He looked angry. "Yes, to participate as a champion in this year's Triwizard Tournament you must be an adult! What are you getting at woman?"

Angela's smile made him even angrier. "Oh I just wanted an official ruling on the subject, thank you sir."

Crouch sneered at her. "Well now that you _have_ the official ruling on the matter, may we continue?"

Angela beamed at him. "Yes, thank you sir!"

Bagman had no idea what was going on, so he just jumped in. "Well, shall we crack on with it then?" he asked, rubbing his hands together and smiling around the room.

"We've got to give our champions their instructions now, don't we? Barty, do you want to do the honours old son?"

Crouch appeared to be distracted, probably trying to work out what Angela was up to, so Bagman had caught him off-balance.

"Yes…. the instructions. Yes . . . the first task . . ."

"The first task is designed to test your daring." he told Harry, Cedric, Fleur, and Krum. "so we will not be telling you what it is. Courage in the face of the unknown is an very important quality in a wizard. . . very important."

"This first task will take place on November the twenty-fourth, in front of the other students and the panel of judges."

"The champions are not permitted to ask for or accept help of any kind from their school's teachers to complete the tasks in the tournament. Furthermore, the champions will face the first challenge armed only with their wands. They will receive information about the second task once the first task is over. Also, owing to the demanding and time-consuming nature of the tournament, the champions will be exempted from their end-of-year tests."

Crouch turned to look at Dumbledore.

"I think that's all, isn't it Albus?"

"I think so," said Dumbledore, who was looking at him with mild concern. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to stay at Hogwarts tonight, Barty?"

"No. No Albus, I must get back to the Ministry," Crouch responded. "It is a very busy, very difficult time at the moment…"

Dumbledore nodded to him before turning to ask. "Professor Karkaroff, Madame Maxime, would you care to join us for a nightcap?"

But Madame Maxime had already put her arm around Fleur's shoulders and was leading her swiftly out of the room. Fleur paused to squeeze Harry's shoulder reassuringly as they passed and he could hear them both talking in rapid-fire French as they headed off into the Great Hall. Karkaroff beckoned imperiously to Krum, and they, too, exited the chamber, though there was no discussion between them.

Angela took Harry by the shoulder and directed him to the door with Sirius and Alice, nodding slightly at Amelia's look to say that she'd be up later. They would have the goblins do a thorough testing of the blood and everything else on the parchment, but they didn't doubt Poppy's findings, Angela had already done the same test herself and it confirmed what Poppy found.

* * *

The next morning, as expected, just about everyone was accusing Harry of being a cheat. Professor McGonagall kept insisting that Dumbledore do something about it, but he just kept saying that his hands were tied and there was nothing that he could do about it.

Eventually she gave up on Dumbledore and stood to announce that it had been proven the previous night that Duke Potter had had nothing to do with his being entered into the tournament. She went on to say that it had been done in such a way that he couldn't pull out of the tournament without losing his magic, so he was being forced to risk losing his very life by competing in the tournament in order to save his magic.

She finished by saying that any Hogwarts students who were seen to be attacking or harassing Duke Potter over this would be severely punished. Dumbledore tried to tell her that she had no authority to do that, but Professor Flitwick immediately stood to reinforce Professor McGonagall's position, quickly followed by Professor Sprout and the rest of the professors. Only Dawlish and Selwyn sat this out without saying anything, so Dumbledore backed down as he could see that he couldn't win.

They were surprised when Madame Maxime also stood and made the same admonishment to the Beauxbatons delegation, but as she quietly explained to Minerva, she had been watching what was going on and realised that she and the other professors were correct, it had been _proven_ that the boy hadn't entered himself and he was risking life and limb in this tournament to save his magic. She added that the boy had already proven that he was in fact a true champion by the way he'd accepted this without complaint, so she wasn't about to allow her students to attack him either!

* * *

They invited Fleur to join them in their tutoring sessions, and with Madame Maxime's permission, she did. It was an easy choice for her, because with this group she was free from the men and boys panting after her and the girls attacking her because they were convinced that she was going to take their boyfriends and prospects from them, but she was pleasantly surprised to find that the tutoring sessions were also far superior to the general classes for those subjects.

When she got a letter back from Charlie to say that he'd be seeing her in late November because he was coming over for work, she showed it to Harry, because there was only one reason for Charlie to be coming to Hogwarts for work. Fleur was a little surprised that Harry knew that sort of language he came out with at that, until she remembered that he'd been taught by some of the most competent and dangerous Aurors and hit wizards that the family could find, and most of them had been rather rough characters (as was his godfather for that matter). She didn't disagree with what he said for that matter, as she'd shared his sentiments when she found out that she'd be facing a dragon in this damned tournament.

When Fleur asked the others not to tell her parents, they didn't agree at first, but she convinced them that she had to prove to herself that she could this and pointed out that as a veela she had some advantages. That was enough to get Angela, Alice and Dora on her side, as they'd all had to fight for their places in the male dominated Magical world, so they helped her convince the others.


End file.
